Monday, August 5, 2013

Our Adoption Day

There are WAY too many reasons to list on this blog of why these 3 children were meant to be ours.  God made some of the reason's pretty obvious :), but there are even more that are much more personal. I really respect a friend/fellow foster parent who says that her adopted children's stories are their stories to tell, not hers.  And if they want to tell their personal story someday, she will be more than happy to help them.  But, until then, she will keep them private.

Our adoption day was a very long awaited day. And just like any and every other part of our foster parenting story there was the question of is it really going to happen?  For real, we didn't know for sure until 2 days before, but I was still a little leery.  Joe was scared to death that someone hadn't done one little piece of paperwork and it was going to throw everything off and I would end up losing my mind and doing something not very smart!  Ha!  I can laugh about it now, but I was stressing to the max until the lawyer announced before court began that there was an adoption about to happen in the judges chambers before court could begin.  Then they actually called us back.  And the judge actually granted the adoption.  Which took all of 2 minutes.  But, it actually happened.  I have to admit, it was a little bit of a "all of this for that" moment.  ha!  But it was also super special.  And I am very thankful for the special people who were there to share it with us!  Okay, I'll shut up now and show you the precious pictures that my awesome friend Marianne took for me!

My favorite picture from the whole day.  Probably my favorite picture ever taken of these 3.  It just captures their personalities perfectly!  This is in front of the court house before we went in.
A few of the outtakes just because they make me laugh!
Lets choke our sissy while smiling.  I mean, why not!?!  Oh that boy.
The best one of our family of 5.  I gave up on the "perfect picture" a long time ago!  Ha!  
Some family shots.
More family shots.
With Marianne and Ruby Grace.  Really not sure how I would have made it through the last 20 months without her!  And one of my favorite memories of the adoption will always be MB and RG squeaking around the judges chambers in their squeaky shoes playing during the adoption.  It really was precious!  And they have no choice but to be friends for life, so it is wonderful that they got to share this day together.
Here is the official picture with Judge Goodson.  I was a little sad that Judge Wilson, who had been the judge the whole time the kids were in care, was recovering from heart surgery so he couldn't be there.  We might have to make a special trip to see him.
And the kids with Tjuana Byrd, their attorney ad litem.  She is absolutely wonderful!  I cannot say enough good things about her.  She truly has the children's best interest at heart.  And is absolutely wonderful at her job!!  We feel very lucky that she has been looking out for these 3 from the beginning!

I'll share more about our day in another post because this one is getting ridiculously long!  Ha!


Rae

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