A decade since ADOPTION DAY!!!

Today marks the ten year anniversary of our court date to finalize our adoption!! Logan and Ellie were six months old. I think it was some kind of adoption law that required it to be a six month process. I can't remember. And we had a few extra steps to take because we started the process in California, intending to finish it there. But by the time these little bundles were two months old, we lived back in Utah, near both our very big families! Not what we had anticipated, but very meant to be. Starting an adoption process legally in one state and finalizing in another gets tricky. Luckily we just let the attorney and adoption social workers figure all of that out for us.

So here we are at the Logan City Courthouse. Which is so ironic because when we named Logan...Logan, we had no intentions of ever living in the city of Logan again! But like every other tiny step of the way in this adoption process, it was meant to be. It was one miraculous blessing on top of another in those months.
This picture is inside the courthouse with our adoption attorney, the judge (who happened to be the father of a gal I went to high school with), and the adoption social worker who finished things up for us on the Utah end. (We sure did miss our amazing social worker, Kyle Oswald, who started the whole process with us in California. He was incredible to work with through this whirlwind process.)

Logan slept through most of the court proceedings. And Ellie was so loud squealing and talking we missed half of what the judge said. I saved their little Adoption Day outfits, and tonight we pulled them out of the kids baby keepsake boxes. Ellie's was a little linen dress, and Logan wore this adorable little velvet knickers outfit with suspenders. I had purchased that green outfit years before, saving it for our little baby boy and one of his special occasions. Little did I know that the special occasion would be his Adoption Day!!!

Here are Logan and Ellie tonight, holding their little keepsake outfits, exactly one decade after they wore them. 

 

 

These two little souls were always meant to be our family. No question! No doubt! As soon as we learned about Keri and that she was having twins, we knew they were ours. (OK, Darin knew....I didn't dare let myself  hope that high.) And then the news came that she had indeed chosen us....and there is no explaining it in words, but it was as if we already knew these little spirits. And when we met Keri there was a connection that might as well have gone back a million years, and into the future a million more. She assured us that first time we met that she knew these were our babies. HER babies were OUR babies! She was calm, and sure. And that created a bond with her that we all share, that very few people get to experience or understand. During the five weeks after we met her, until the twins were born, we had four baby showers thrown for us. People were nervous. They questioned whether or not that was wise. After all, adoptions fall through all the time. We had no explanation, except that we knew this was going to happen. I wasn't carrying those two babies inside my belly, but we were now carrying them inside our hearts and souls. In a way, the same way I was carrying my mom in my heart and soul at that point. I didn't have memories of these babies, nor could I picture their faces....like I could my mom, of course. But they were somehow every bit as much a part of me as my mom. It was not fathomable that this adoption could go wrong. We knew it. And regardless of how extremely difficult, not matter how heart wrenching or soul aching it would be for Keri....she knew it.
It just took the legal system six months to figure out they they knew it!!! Happy Tenth Adoption Day!!