Finalized!

We started the foster care and adoption process in January of 2011. We found our forever on May 22, 2012, and the finalization took place on July 5, 2013. Seems like forever and yet just yesterday that this all began. What a journey!

We arrived at the finalization after a LONG morning. We had checked out of the hotel, daddy got a haircut, we stopped for lunch at Chick Fil A (where there was an e coli breakout so we couldn't have fountain drinks or ice), and we had played at a playground. We were hot, dirty, and happy :)

I went into the building first to try to figure out the room number and so on. I didn't make it past security - apparently you can't have tweezers or nail files. When I got back outside, the kids' worker was there, so we all went in together with her. We had a few friends join us as well as the kids' foster family. It was kind of a zoo while we waited with all six kiddos before going into the courtroom, but everyone settled in when we entered the courtroom.

It was the judges first week on the job, so we were only his second finalization. The GAL stood up and said something like, "This family won us over when they told us that they knew this kids were theirs when they saw them online. They just needed to figure out how to get them. We all had tears in our eyes, and this is the happiest adoption we have ever been a part of." Well, that started it off with some tears, but once the formal stuff began, it moved right along. Little Bitty sat on Dad, raised his right hand, and also agreed to adopt all three kiddos. Lol. My daughter sat on my lap and took it all in, and my big boy corrected the judge when he mispronounced our last name. I also had to stop the judge when he referred to my little two as twins. It was a little bit different than I had imagined. Afterwards the judge gave each kid a bear, and we took some pictures. Then we happily drove off to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate. It was a great day!