I decided to show you a picture of my little girl with her name for the curious among you!

I can't believe how much time has passed since I last wrote! Taking care of my little one sure takes up most of my free time. The free time I do have I have been using to pick and can beans and tomatoes from our garden. I also have been working on knitting soakers.

Cloth diapering has been going well. My diapers are no longer smelly. I think I wasn't using enough water at first. I've also started rinsing out diapers in the toilet when she has a bowel movement. They have been occuring less often, at the most every other day, so even though it is gross, I don't mind it too much.

A week ago we were invited over to our next door neighbor's house and we met the neighbor across the street and her baby boy that is three weeks younger than my baby. It was neat to finally meet that neighbor, who is really nice, but who I had never had the opportunity to meet. Her husband is in the military, so that family may not stick aound much longer. Our little ones may never have the opportunity to play together.

My little girl has really been growing. She's now 11 and a half pounds and she's really filling out. She smiles more and more each day and that really brings joy to my husband and me. She's starting to get more strength in her neck muscles and can really be a pain to burp when she starts pushing away.

Burping is my main problem with her. If I don't get the burp out then she can vomit a bunch of it back out an hour later. I'm always worried it's going to happen in public. So far it hasn't happened.

Every day I still wonder what will be arriving in the mail. We usually get a card or two and sometimes even a package from my friends and relatives that live far away. There are others who are waiting to give us a gift until we know we will be keeping our baby forever. I'm glad that there will be new presents that we'll get when we celebrate that fact that the adoption will really take place.

Monday we got the news we had been waiting to hear. A court date has been set for our baby's birthmother to terminate her parental rights. The date is October 3 at 1:00 pm. So we have to wait three more weeks. :( The agency will call us that day after court and tell us how it went. Then if there is no appeal after the 21 day waiting period, then we will petition the court to adopt our baby.

October 24 we will be able to finally say with assurance that she is ours. That will be a real day of celebration. After October 24 we plan to have her baptized and there will be two baby showers for her. One is from my work (the parents and teachers from school), and one is with good friends of ours. My mom has started making plans to fly out and visit us. It will be nice when she comes, maybe even for the baptism.

Tonight or tomorrow I plan to take my little girl to the interim care family's home. This is the family that cared for her during her first month. They have another baby with them that came one day after our baby left them, so it will be neat to see a baby smaller than mine.

In two weeks it will be a year since we went to our first adoption meeting. It's hard to believe that all this has happened in less than a year. Many people are surprised that we have been able to adopt a newborn caucasian in such a short time. I think we were just in the right place at the right time, plus God was there all the time making everything work out just right.