Officially a Forever Family

On December 30 we went for our MN court appointment to finalize our adoption. This was mostly a formality, but it did require quite a bit of paperwork. It took me about 5 months to figure out what paperwork was needed and fill everything out. Part of the delay was my laziness. But as the end of the year quick approached I felt pressured to get everything done in 2010. We made it just in the nick of time -on the last court date possible. Good thing there were no mistakes in our paperwork, or we would have been delayed in 2011.

Here are some pictures for the day of our court appointment.The hearing went perfectly and the judge was hilarious. The kids did well and we were blessed to have our family there along with us. The best part of the hearing was that the judge couldn't figure out how to say Liliana's Ethiopian name -Mihiret - so anytime he had to say it, I said it for him. :) We are so glad that we are finally an official forever family!

**A hint for any adoptive families out there that will be doing this soon: get there early! Our hearing was scheduled for 8:30, but that is the same time as all of the other adoption hearings. We arrived at 8:00 and were the first ones there. Therefore, we were first in line for the judge. There were probably around 8 families waiting after us.**