We have been busy around here, we are getting ready for our exchange student. She arrives tomorrow night. We had a change in plans, our original student who was Vietnamese got sick and was not allowed to travel for 3 weeks and since she was just a 1 term student she could not come..... So after we thought we would end up with no student we got a call wondering if we could host a girl from Thailand because the family that was going to host her backed out. So now we will be having a girl from Thailand for the whole school year. I have spoke with her over e-mail and talked to her mom on the phone a few times.

We went to a wonderful wedding last night for some friends of ours. We took Cami to the ceremony but, then went to the reception without her. We had a great time, everything look amazing like out of a magazine. We are running out of friends to get married. We have one more in October than after that I think we are out of single friends.....

I am having a hard time with the fact that Labor Day weekend in almost here..... I am thinking about head up the my families house on Lake Michigan. I think C- our exchange student would like it. It's just nice to get away and not do much.

Cami got invited to her first birthday party. One of the little girls in our China play group is turning 2 and is having a princess party. The neatest thing I think is the party is at 10:30 in the morning, I thought that was a great idea for little kids. I need to put a tulle skirt together for her to wear.

Next Tuesday(Sept.2) is my first day off from me going part time!!!! Yeah, 5 day weekend. I am going to be off on Tuesdays now too!!! It will work out great because I can get Cami in a gymnastics class. One of her friends from our play group is in the same class too.

Football season will soon be firing up and I am excited about that, Jon will be working a lot because his business does a lot of things for the University here. I need to get Cami another cheerleading uniform for this season. Go Irish!!!!

What is all this hotness you wonder????

Last weekend I went to an 80's themed bachelorette party!!! Talk about a great time, the girls that threw it rented a bus to cart us around so no one had to drive.

There were 20 of us and every single one of us dressed up.

I won tallest hair, 4.5" tall, I would have killed for hair that tall back in the day. Of coarse it took FOREVER to wash all the hair spray out of it the next morning.

Enjoy!!

We are going to be hosting an exchange student until Christmas time. So, here is my problem I want to get her some things so she feels at home but, I need any ideas or suggestions.

I know I am going to get her all new towels and such, maybe a bath caddy so she can keep all her stuff in it.

A little about her, she is 16 from Germany BUT!!!! She is actually Vietnamese and lived in Vietnam until she was 9. So I am super excited about learning more about Vienamese culture.

I am nervious..... Because now I will be taking care of a 16 year old girl!!!! aaahhhhh I will try hard not to be an over the top mama bear.

HELP!!!!

Picture #1 is all the fabrics I have been collecting for the sewing my mom and I plan on doing. I have been prowling around fabrics stores seeing who has the best selections.

Picture #2 This is Cami's new purse(hot I know) I am going to a bachelorette party Saturday night that has an 80's theme and I went to the Doll@r Tre* to find so cheap things for it and ran across this purse.... Cami loves it but, mom will have to borrow it.

She is so funny now about purses and when we say time to go bye bye she says's "wait my purse"!!! All those little toys are what she has been caring in her purse. You just never know when you will need a cooking pot and spoon!!!

And pictures 3 and 4 I took Cami Saturday to get her hair cut for the first time, her bangs were down past her nose and she won't let me clip them back, so I decided a little trim was in order. I also had my hair dresses trim up the back, she had a bit of a baby mullet going on so that got evened out a bit more. It looks so cute but, I think it makes her look a bit older because now she has a little style going. She did so good and held still, I have taken her will me a few times so she would know what to expect.

And on to the not so fun stuff. I really don't hit to heavy on the hard adoption subjects on this blog but, I felt like I needed to address this.

My daughter is from Nam Dinh, there has been some serious things come up about Nam Dinh adoptions in the last few weeks. I know very little about her life prior to May 2007 and now I feel I know even less. Was she one of the babies in this scandal? I have no idea and will probably never know.

Did we get a fast referral? No we we DTV 2 weeks shy of 1 year when we got matched. Did we travel fast after referral? Yes, the babies from Cami's orphanage were already paper ready when they were referred, I had heard of other orphanages doing this also so it did not seem strange. Nam Dinh was a new area for our agency to be working with, so we were one of the first families to complete an adoption from there.

There were lots of babies in her orphanage(around 20) and a 3 toddlers, I had never been to an orphanage before so I had and still do not have any idea if that is a lot of children.

Out of all this the only thing I really know is that I have a happy healthy wonderful little girl I am blessed to call my daughter. I have decided long before this scandal broke that I would always be honest with my daughter about anything I knew regarding her adoption and this new turn of events will not change it.

The truth may not be pretty but, it will be the truth. I never want her to feel that I have kept anything from her or hid it. I know I will have some very hard questions to answer one day.

This scrunched up face is the new one she gives me as soon as she sees me get out the camera and she is saying cheese, so we call this her cheese face!!!

She has been acting so silly lately and cracking me up. I just love her personality.

In other stuff, my mom and I are going to try and make Cami a couple simple dresses. My mom sews very well, me..... Not so well but, I want to get better so I can do some cute things for my girl. In another post I will take some pictures of the cute material that I picked out for Cami's dresses.

Sorry no new pictures.....

My sweet little girl has had a stomach bug for the last few days, with this bug she has had a very upset tummy. I felt so bad for her, my biggest concern is that she would not eat. She was drinking fine but, would not eat and for a little girl who does not have an extra ounce to spare that really upset me. I took her to the doctor yesterday, her doctor said she looked fine and was well hydrated and that when she feels like eating she will....

She took Cami's weight and at 21 months old she is 19.3 lbs, she has only put on about 1 lbs in 3 months. I know she eats good (some days better than others) but, she is so active I know she burns a ton of calories!!! I am hoping she is 20 lbs by her 2nd birthday.

Did I say 2nd birthday..... That is coming up so soon, hard for me to believe. I swear we just had her 1st birthday. I am at a loss at what to do for her birthday. Being October, it's hard telling what the weather will be like. I guess we could do a bounce house but I am not sure.... I don't know what to get her either.

We are going up to Ike@ this weekend so I am going to check out their big girl beds and maybe we will get her that for her birthday, I have not decided yet.

I am eyeing 2 classes to sign her up for this fall. One is a mommy and me dance class, I think if we do that she and I will choose to do the thriller dance for our routine..... I say that because her current dance moves remind me of that video. And there is also a class at the local Montessori school that I want to try out.

We have been on zoo kick lately, this last weekend we drove over to Ft. Wayne Indiana and went to the children's zoo, it was great. Cami loves animals and we have a zoo pass to our local zoo that gets us into zoo's all over the country for free or 50% off. We are planning on going over to Toledo Ohio to their zoo some time soon.

Her favorite part is the petting zoo goats! The goats at our local zoo are older and fat, so they just lay around, not to active. At the Ft. Wayne zoo they were all babies and very active, she did not know what to think of them, so she had her daddy pick her up.

Tomorrow my not so little baby will be 21 months old!!! I am having a hard time realizing that in fact Cami has been home over 1 year and will soon be 2 years old. I love watching her grow and blossom, every single day she changes, it is so amazing to me to watch this.

Cami cracks me up, we call her our "All American Princess" because she LOVES to watch baseball (I mean is she sees anything on TV with baseball she screams baseball and run for the TV) and she loves rock n' roll and country music!!! I mean baseball, Bruce Springs@een and Kenny #hesney how much more All American do you get.

In other news, I have read over the information packet for our China adoption and it's kind of funny because once your have done 1 dossier a second one does not seem to bad!!! I looked it over and said oh no big deal!!!! My only concern is dealing with USCIS, last time it took forever to get our I-171H because they kept loosing our paperwork...... If anyone knows how long Chicago USCIS I-171H turn around time is please let me know, I think last time it took almost 4 months for us to get it.

I turn 30 in December so sometime after the first of the year when I feel motivated I will get the adoption ball rolling!!! My personal goal is to have it ready to go by September 2009. We are planning a D!sney trip for the end of September (2009) for our anniversary and Cami's 3rd birthday so I want it to be DTC by then.