ADOPTION DAY!

The day I had been waiting 818 days for had finally come. December 3rd - Adoption Day. I woke up in the morning and got the kids situated with their breakfast next to the Christmas Tree. Jaxson (that feels nice!) has been infatuated with the Christmas Tree since we set it up and every morning he runs to turn the lights on. He couldn't eat breakfast the first couple days because he would just stand and watch the tree lights so we told him Thursday was a special day and he could eat in the living room and watch the tree. In fact the whole family sat at the little, itty bitty kids table and ate cereal. It was a perfect start to the day.

After breakfast the texts and the status updates started coming - there were so many I couldn't keep up! A couple made me tear up and I was sure it wasn't the last of the day.

After breakfast we dressed the kids and took them to take photos with Aunt Amy and Uncle Swaz. They went pretty well. Jaxson wasn't feeling well so he gave up on smiling pretty quickly and just wanted to be cuddled. I enjoyed every minute of it - normally he's so active and I only get cuddles in the morning when he's not fully awake yet.

Roaring like a Lion!

Snuggles

Tickles

I forgot to mention, I was very frustrated earlier in the week because Jayce got sent home from school on Tuesday for being sick and then Jaxson got sent home on Wednesday. On top of that I was battling a pretty nasty sinus infection. On Wednesday we actually had Jaxson at the urgent care for an infection. I was less than thrilled that my family was going to be sick on adoption day (Thursday) but at the same time felt like I couldn't complain - we were going to be recognized as a family!

After pictures we went home and just played with the kids until it was time to leave for court. My husband's awesome sister tagged our car so we got some honks on the way to court :)

We waited about 20 minutes before we were called in at which point I realized we didn't have Judge Cohen as requested. Judge Cohen made the decision to keep the kids with their family so we requested he complete the adoption. Unfortunately he was out on an unplanned medical leave. Oh well.....adoption day goes on except then the step in judge asks if we want to reschedule our adoption day because our lawyer was at the wrong courthouse and had all the paperwork. I almost broke down right then and there. Did she not understand how long we waited for this day? Did she not understand that 19 people had requested the day off work, been pulled out of school, or missed their nap time so they could witness our forever family moment? I was dumbfounded that she would even suggest such a thing! Luckily Jon jumped in and asked if we could wait for our lawyer to drive across town and just delay a little. The judge happily agreed stating the next case would take about 20 minutes.

TWO HOURS, numerous snacks, 50 runs through the courthouse halls, and 20 meltdowns later we were called back in. I had lost all faith that our forever day would ever occur and at that point just wanted it over because I felt awful making everyone wait at a courthouse that long. Ten minutes later we were declared Jonathan, Tina, Jaycee, and Jaxson Lyons! Worth the wait? You bet!

Afterwards we all came back to our house for a toast, dinner, celebration, laughter, and love. We are finally the family we always thought, we are the Lyons!