Christmas!

We are both glad the Holidays are behind us and we can not wait until next year to celebrate with Leah. We have both been thinking of all of the traditions we can begin with her and it makes us so excited. Even though we were a bit glum missing Leah we had a nice Holiday... we went to Lincoln on Christmas eve and spent the day with the Brehaut/Porter gang and came home that night to visit with the Moore/Michaud gang when they got home from church. Christmas day we went to Portland and had a great time at Uncle Matt's... we are still stuffed from the meal!

Apparently we were not the only ones thinking of Leah on Christmas as she got a lot of presents! When Andrew was a kid after they opened all of their presents they displayed them on their beds so when family dropped by to visit they could see them. So, we did the same for Leah- we put all of her presents in her crib! Some of our favorite gifts: Cousin Braden has great taste and sent Leah an adorable outfit from Baby Gap, Maggie Metzler got Leah a wooden elephant, Ty and Courtney got her tiny jeans and an adorable shirt, Grammie Rozanne had "Mommy and me" aprons made, a mini "clean canteen" bottle, and got her a mini purple soccer ball.. and Great Aunt Brenda got her a bunch of stuff but my favorite was the organic, maine made baby lotions and soap.

Thanks Everyone!

Varsity!

This has little to do with adoption but tonight Leah's Dad has his first ever Varsity basketball game as a Ref! He is VERY excited... Congrats Andrew!

The actual Certificate

Apparently this rarely happens, but today MAPS got a copy of our actual NOC, from CARA. We were excited- makes the step feel even more real and complete! Kate our India coordinator scanned it and emailed it to me- so I decided since this blog is a bit like our "baby book" it should go on here!

Today we also got the last of the bloodwork results we needed for the scrutiny committee... long story, but let's just say luckily for us the catcher on Andrew's baseball team has a mom who may or may not be in charge of the lab!

We also received our "Travel packet" in the mail today - which makes this feel even more real!!! Pretty neat that we are getting close enough to make some initial plans. We now know where we will be staying, and that we will have a hired driver in both cities and such so knowing all of that makes it a bit more comforting.

We had a huge storm here yesterday! We LOVE the snow, but not so much the cold... trying to decide if we can brave the temperature to go skiing tonight at the local "mountain"... We went snowshoeing this morning and it was so pretty with the sun out... watching Bella was the best part! She was a riot!

Things are looking up for sure! We are both on vacation for 2 weeks! Andrew will be reffing a lot and I will be working at some HA basketball games but we did find a couple of days to go away skiing- can't wait for that!

Bal Asha has NOC

It's official... Bal Asha has our certificate! Great news!

So now our paperwork goes before the scrutiny committee (sort of a health and human services group) who "scrutinizes" everything before it is sent to the judge to again double check that everything is in perfect order for the judge. This is normally a 3-4 week process. Luckily, they have already told us that they think this committee will want Hep B tests for us and another copy of our 2007 tax returns so we are getting those done and on the way to the committee.

Once this group signs off on our paperwork it is sent to the High Court of Bombay where a judge will review our case and grant verbal guardianship. This part sometimes takes up to 6 weeks.

So a few more steps but the ball is rolling a bit... very exciting!

NOC

We have word from CARA (Central Adoption Resource Agency) that our NOC (No Objection Certificate) has been issued. We emailed to check the status of it, and they emailed back telling us- they are more efficient than some of our gov't agencies we have dealt with!

So, Bal Asha has not yet received the actual Certificate yet as they mail it and it can take up to 2 weeks but this is still wonderful news in time for the Holidays! We had thought the NOC would take 12 weeks so this is great as it has been about 7 weeks. At this point we go through a scrutiny committee (who wants another copy of our 2007 tax records and more blood work) and then our case goes before a judge. So, Leah may join our family sooner than we thought!

13 months old!

Today Leah is 13 months old and we got a gift- a new picture of her and one of her caretakers. Minal, the MAPS coordinator in India had visited Leah and everyone at Bal Asha on Wednesday before the attacks began and took this picture for us. They also updated us on her measurements- she is tiny, but growing so we are happy for that! Daddy is sad her curls are cut off but I assured him they will grow back out!

Happy December!