Its REALLY official now!

On May 25, 2012 we made Justin's adoption final here in the U.S. Maddie and Brett were granted an excused absence and we were headed to the Ft. Worth, Texas Family Law Center. We stopped and ate breakfast at The Original Pancake House and then continued on.

It was really pretty easy and not stressful at all once we were in the court room. I don't have any babies, but if I did I hope I would be relaxed because all the cries and fusses in the court from the babies were not a big deal. In fact the judge asked for a little bit more noise because it was too quiet. They really did want a day of celebration in the court room and I guess all of the families were not rowdy enough for him. I was hoping to see more older child adoptions but Justin was clearly the oldest at almost 6 years old. A lot of babies except for one other brave family that had 3 biological boys and 2 younger adopted girls who seemed to be about 2 and 3 years of age.

I almost let Maddie and Brett go to school that day, but on the other hand I wanted another "official" day for them to process all of it, if it would help more. Questions still come up from the bio kids and I need to reassure them still. But on the other hand I think they "got it" and from all 3 the attitude was "Why are we going?" "But we are already a family", "But we already adopted him".

So needless to say as much as I would have wanted more of a celebration attitude it really was a lot like a day when the kids get along at times and then I'm breaking up a fussing match or two. But it is official and in the eyes of Texas we are the Sturm family of five.

This picture was taken before we went into the court room (everyone files in and listens to the other adoption cases. Each case lasted 3-4 minutes).

The judge pauses to take pictures with each family. Every child is welcome to take a stuffed animal home. They were used to decorate the court room.