Legal

On April 5 we went to court to legalize Boston's adoption. It was a much awaited, highly emotional, all around fabulous day! The court experience was much different than when we finalized with Kiara in Utah. Here we were in and out within 40 minutes, and the majority of that time was spent walking to and from the car and going through security multiple times only to realize that the buckles on my shoes were considered a security risk! 

The finalization took place in the judge's chambers and the judge was extremely kind. After looking over our file and playing for a moment with each of our kids (I never get sick of saying each of our kids!) he looked at us and said, 

"It is obvious to me that it is absolutely, no doubt, definitely in Boston's best interest to be a part of your family forever and so that is hereby my ruling. Congratulations, you are now officially a family!" 

I love the wording he used and how convinced he was that Boston was ours. I will never forget that moment. After taking a few pictures we were on our way as a legal and official family. 

I think Boston knew he was a special man: 

After court we stopped by the LDSFS office to say thank you to our incredible caseworker. Wayne really is an inspired man and I have so much respect for him. He is unbelievably busy but he always made us feel like a priority and we knew he cared about our family. 

 After leaving the Family Services office we decided to get pictures done of our new "official" family (apparently we had just been pretending for the previous 6+ months!). Unfortunately we didn't get digital copies of the pictures so scanned will have to do.

We ended the day with a celebration dinner with some good friends at Red Robin and as we were leaving, Kiara let out a big sigh and said "I like being a family." She read my mind!