Sixth Adoptaversary

"Wow," you might be saying, "two adoption anniversaries in a row?" 

Yes, it was an amazing thing to happen to us when they gave us the court date for J on August 2, 2007, when just the year before, we'd finalized adoption on S, H and Z on August 3, 2006.  Apparently, the courts in our state only do adoptions on Thursdays, so once we knew it was going to happen around the same time frame, we tried to get the same date, but it didn't work.  Still, it makes celebrating adoptaversaries in our family kind of easy because we can clump them together on the weekend closest.  Poor O, though; his adoption happened in December, but we celebrate him with the rest of the kids since December is already busy with Christmas and O's birthday.

Anyway, today is the sixth anniversary of gaining S, H and Z as official members of our family.  H and Z were placed in our care in June 2003, while S came to us in November 2003.  So at nearly four years, our wait for them was our longest of all our kids.  I guess if we divide that number by three, the average works out to be pretty on par with our waits for the other two ... and they are worth the wait, so it all worked out in the end.

Ironically, we never really got a picture of the three kids together on adoption day, so what I'm sharing here is from Valentine's Day 2004, which was months following their placements with us.

S was eight in this picture, 11 when we adopted her and is 17 now.  She's a beautiful person and we have been so blessed to be part of her life story.  She's our helper, our compassionate one and the best big sister to all her younger siblings.  We are so proud of the young lady she's become.

H was just barely four in this picture, six when we adopted him and is 12 now.  He's our builder, our fixer, our social butterfly and the one most ready to evangelize the world by sharing his faith boldly.  He is becoming quite the leader as he grows and matures.  It's exciting to think about the man he will be down the road.

Z was almost two in this picture, four when we adopted him and is 10 now.  He's our teddy bear, our sweet soul, our comedian and our athlete.  I know he still has a lot of growing up to do, but I sure hope he never loses his cuddliness. 

We love you all, S, H and Z.  We are so happy you're ours!