Blessed!

We can't get enough of those cheeks!

More Fun pictures

Quincie and Lexi

Sunglasses at night!

VIDEO Lexi Is Crawling!

All the LOVE in the world!

Rylee and Lexi

Brady and Lexi

Cassidy and Lexi

All in their Ugg Boots, even little Miss Lexi

Christmas Eve sweats

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours. Merry Christmas!

2 Days Til Christmas!

With only 2 days til Christmas there is so much excitement around the house. Even though Lexi has no clue what the excitement is all about the kids are just so excited to be with her on Christmas morning and just to spend her First Christmas right here in the moment with her!

Night Time Troubles~

Well, lets just say night time has gotten a little tougher.....

Miss Lexi has been going to bed later and later each night but then she still wakes up 2-5 times every 30-45 minutes just soaked with tears and head sweat for that first several hours that she is down. Usually somewhere between 1 and 3am she is just too exhausted to keep checking up on us and she settles in for a long rest not waking up until somewhere between 10 and 11:30am. Yes this schedule needs to go... soon!!! She is so happy and so content all the time but man oh man these wake ups are tough! We just hold her tight and rock a few minutes and she's all better. She has the softest skin and the sweetest baby smell and Bryan understand that this is such a temporary thing. We just tell her we love her and kiss her better and pray pray pray she will be over this soon.

Growing~ Yep she is fitting in her 6 month clothes beautifully, she is getting little bits of chubbies everywhere...not just her cheeks haha

Photo Shoot

Lexi had her first photo shoot today. Well at least her first professional one. She was so sweet for the whole thing and I can not wait to see how the pictures turned out. The photographer came to the house early this morning and got some shots of her in her crib in her jammies. Then a few at the house before we headed out to do some outdoor shots. We took the last set of photos in her little pettiskirt and she fell asleep in it on the way home. I guess it's exhausting being a princess because she ended up sleeping for 4 hours!!! In her little pettiskirt! Here a a few quick pictures I snapped as I loaded her in the car to head home and one of her asleep in her bed.

Singing Happy Birthday

Birthday Video

Happy Birthday Lexi is 1 year old!

Today is Lexi's Birthday! Our Tiny Princess is 1 year old! We had a little celebration here at the house with the kids and then we went to dinner with our sweet friends in the evening. Lexi finally got to meet her future buddies and my favorite twins on the planet. Anders and Elling are 10 months old. We had a nice dinner at Mimi's and then we all went to look at Christmas lights. The weather was perfect! When we got home Auntie Kim and Grandma, Uncle Ed and all the cousins were waiting to skype Lexi a big happy birthday. They all sang to her and it was the sweetest thing ever! Happy Birthday BabyCakes!

1 month together!

We have been Lexi's parents for 1 month today! In this short little time she has filled our hearts with such joy and such love. She has filled our home with more laughter than we know what to do with. She has opened the doors of adoption to several families who have met her. She has brought our families closer, our friends closer, our lives are forever changed. I feel like we have always had her. Like she was born to us. It is funny because when we go out and the occasional person asks if she was adopted, at first I think..How did they know that??.. I forget that she is my Chinese daughter. I just look at her and see my daughter, my baby girl. She is so beautiful and the sparkle in her eyes is enough to take anyones breath away. We love her so much and thank God every day for the beautiful gift He has given us. The beautiful gift of adoption. Happy one month Gotcha Day Anniversary BabyCakes! Mommy and Daddy love you all the way to China and back.

Sleeping in my own room

Lexi is sleeping in her own room now. She continues to have a few hours of waking and going back down in the wee hours of the night. She pants and shakes and her heart races. She cries out for me and once she hears me and feels my touch she is ok. I dont even have to pick her up, I just run in and put my hand on her. She will grab my hand and squeeze it as tight as she can and wimper back to sleep. Last night she did this for almost 2 hours. I continue to pray over her and wait for her to trust me enough to know that I will always be here. Tomorrow we go to the doctor for her first american check up. We will see if her ears have cleared up, where she is developmentally, what shots she will need, how much she weighs (I'm sure she's gained like 5 pounds since gotcha day!) and so on. The weather has gotten cold and it is super stormy tonight. We have the tree up and she just loves to go sit by it. Enjoy the pictures. Mary

Just some fun pictures

We took Lexi to Pei wei for lunch after church on Sunday. She had a great time sucking on a fortune cookie and eating some rice with chopsticks. She still does not know what to do with rice so she will store it in her cheeks and later spit it out. I love the picture of her eating with the chopsticks! And I love her in this blue dress! I love her in anything, even a stinker poo diaper haha!

Trying to crawl

Lexi tries so hard to crawl! She can go from tummy to sitting by herself now so I'm sure she is getting close. As for now she is just testing it out!

3 weeks of Joy

We have had Lexi in our lives for 3 weeks now. It feels like she has always been ours. We have bonded so quickly and so beautifully. She always has an ear to ear grin for us even from the very minute she wakes up in the morning. She loves to play with her brother and steal his glasses. Seeing my little boy carry her around and be a big brother takes my breath away. She brings joy to whatever place she is at, whatever person is around. The other day we were in Costco and she was sitting in the cart with her big flffu cover on the cart seat and that big costco cart just swallowed her up. She just looked like a button in their. Anyway, I gave her a book that had buttons that played Christmas tunes and she pushed it and began swaying side to side and boppin to the music and this crowd of people just appeard out of nowhere and they were just cracking up at her. Well she saw that she had an audience so she started pushing new buttons and just jammin to the songs and getting all in to it and she was just smiling this huge cheesy grin. She had these people in tears laughing and she just loved the attention. It was just precious! She brings us Joy, so much Joy.

Bubble Time

Girls Day Out

Today Auntie Nat, Lexi and I had our first Girls Day out as a party of 3. Lexi did wonderful getting to know my best friend Natalie and was a Jem at lunch. Thursdays will be our special days together.

Lexi is 11 months old!

1 Week Home!

We are home! It has been a week, the fastest week of my life! We are so happy to be home. Lexi did wonderful on the long flight home. She only had one poopykins on the plane ride. It was the short flight from Guangzhou to Shanghai and there were some empty seats so Bryan just took her back there and changed her. He then brought her back to me, said he was going to go pack up the diaper bag and throw away the diaper but he never came back! Yep he ditched us. I guess he figured if she did one of those stinkers again he wanted to be far away! Haha! No really, he said he just didn't want to disturb the people trying to get back to his seat. Right?? Funny guy! The flight to SanFrancisco she had no bad diapers, was just as happy and playful as can be, quite the celebrity too! I think all the flight attendants wanted to take a break so they could visit with this little hunny! With all the flirting and attention grabbing she was busy doing, she hardly slept at all so we were pretty darn tired when we got in to Phoenix. She did cry out at take off and landing and was really pulling on those ears. Once home she did amazing meeting her sibblings and Grandma. She was going to them by that evening. By midnight she still was crying every time we tried to lay her down and her ears were so red from pulling on them. We headed to the all night pediatric urgent care and found out she had a double ear infection. By 5 am we were home, medicine taken, warm bottle and asleep! (For a few hours anyway)

We had lots of family come in for Thanksgiving so there have been many new faces, new voices and new things going on. Baby Cakes has taken in all in like a little tourist! She is so social, so friendly, so happy, so funny and sooooo sweet! She does not like people to get too close when we are outside of the home but when we are home she feels safe and secure. She knows who her family is, she loves her family!

2 weeks of having Lexi in our arms and here is what she can now do.

Pick up food with pointer and thumb and put it in mouth

wave bye bye in both the baby up down way and the princess side to side way

play patty cake and sing catty K catty K over and over

say mama, dada, bubu, baba

click her tongue

smack her lips

make a kissy face

gets up on her knees but still not going anywhere

eating lots of baby veggies

bops bunny on the head during little bunny foofoo

loves her bath more than anything

sleeping in her own bed (crib)

Likes her carseat and riding in the car for short times

turns pages and loves books

does all the pages of pat the bunny

will sit for long periods of time just playing on the floor with her toys

loves loves loves music

loves to dance and to watch the girls dance

when we do songs with motions she does the motions to the upcoming parts as soon as she hears the right words

her memory is amazing!

We just love our little girl!!