Happy Easter everyone!

Allie had so much fun celebrating Easter this weekend and today was a beautiful day outside spent with family.  We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday filled with family and friends!

She loves her babies!

3 year check up

Last week we had Allie's 3 year check up.  She is still off the charts in height and weight.  She's 42 1/2 inches tall and 40 1/2 pounds.  (She's now in a 11 1/2 - 12 shoe too!)  She's meeting all of her developmental milestones and she passed her hearing and vision screening check with flying colors.  All in all, our doctor said that Allie's doing great!

More about Allie's favorites:
Activities:  GAMES (Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, Memory, any matching games, and i-pod touch games), playing babies, pretending most of the day away, puzzles, running, baking with mommy, doing art projects, play-doh, and playing school with mommy.  She loves to learn about numbers, shapes, and letters...it's amazing how much of a sponge 2-3 year olds are!
Foods:  lettuce salads, asparagus, yogurt, apples & peanut butter, mangos, strawberries, grapes, cheese, pancakes, noodles, soup and milk
Doesn't like: tomatoes, spaghetti, meat (we really struggle with getting her to eat beef and pork)
Color:  Pink of course!

Allie is so excited about being a big sister!  She says good morning to her sisters picture on the fridge every morning and kisses her picture every night.  When Allie's cuddling with me, she'll often times ask me to tell her about when "C" comes home.  We talk about how "C" might be scared and that she may cry.  We talk about how mommy will be holding "C" a lot and that we'll still be able to cuddle a lot too!  I just love that she's so interested in what it will be like when her sister gets home...she really is going to be a great big sister!

Easter eggs at grandma's!

Last weekend, we had our annual Easter egg dying day at grandma & grandpa's house.  We had a lot of fun and now Allie can't wait for the Easter egg hunt on Sunday!  Happy Easter everyone!

Where did spring go?

Last week was nicer than this week for sure here in good old Minnesota, so we took advantage of it and soaked up the warm weather and spent as much time outside as possible.  Allie LOVED running, playing in the grass, exploring our new backyard, writing on trikes/bikes, and doing chalk & bubbles!  I can't wait for this summer...we are going to have SO much fun together!  Only 4 weeks left of school!

In the mail!

We received our updated homestudy from our social worker today and we were able to get our I-800A in the mail yet this afternoon...this just means that we are one step closer to our Indian princess!

Yeah!!

Because I used to live in South Dakota (during college), I had to get a child abuse clearance from South Dakota before our updated home study could be completed.  We talked to our social worker tonight, he now has everything he needs, and will have the official copy in the mail tomorrow.  Hopefully we will be able to send our I-800A off on Wednesday or Thursday!  We are very excited to get the paperwork rolling!!

Here's an update as to what our India social worker says our current timeline looks like:

1.        When your homestudy update is completed, you will file your I-800A.  This applications takes several months to be approved.  

2.       During the wait for the I-800A approval, you can complete the I-800 and I-864 applications.  

3.       During this time you will be working on your pre-referral dossier.  

4.       Once the I-800A is approved I put that paperwork together and submit again to CIS in what is called the Article 16 application.  It takes 3 weeks for the I-800 to receive Provisional Approval.

5.       Once the Provisional Approval is received, I will email the Embassy in Delhi the DS-230 visa application and a photo of your daughter.  By this time your dossier would have been sent to the orphanage. 

6.       The Embassy will then issue an Article 5 letter to the federal government of India called CARA and this takes about 3 weeks from the time I send the DS-230.  

7.       CARA reviews the copy of the dossier and child information they would have received from the orphanage and the Article 5 letter from the Embassy.  They take 1-2 months to issue a No Objection Certificate.  Once this is issued, the orphanage can file the case in court. 

8.       The court takes 2 months to make their decision.  After this, it takes 2 weeks for the written court order and then another 7-10 days for the passport to be issued.  At this time we can get you ready to travel.

9.   When you travel, because your daughter is very young, we don’t expect the trip to be longer than two weeks.  You’ll take 1 ½ days to reach India, spend 3 days at the orphanage, fly to Delhi and the visa process including the visa medical takes about 5 days, then 1 ½ days to fly home.

Deleted post...

I found out that I can't post pictures of our newest little blessing until we are almost ready to leave for India, so for those of you that we don't see every day you'll just have to take my word for it...she's precious!  We have been swamped with paperwork and to do lists for the past week or so.  Today, we all went shopping for a few little things we are going to send to "C" in India.  We're hoping to get it sent off to CHSFS tomorrow and there is a family traveling soon that may take it to her.  It was pretty emotional picking out what to send her...these things will be in our daughters hands in just a few weeks!  Oh I can't wait to get an update on her and to hear how she's doing!!!

I'm really not sure who reads our blog, but I'm hoping that maybe some people will comment and help me out on a few things that I've been wondering about.  If you happen to have adopted a toddler, did you use a moby wrap or a carrier in country.  If so, what brand and how did you like it?   Thanks in advance for any insight any of you can give me!!!