Katie's Re-Adoption

Last week, this little muffin got adopted.

Wait, what?

You thought she already was?

She got re-adopted in our home state of Tennessee.

Re-adoption is not required, as her adoption was finalized in Russia, but we wanted to do it so we could get an American birth certificate for her.

And I work for a group of attorneys, so it didn't cost us anything but the court filing fee.

Also, my extended family from Massachusetts was here, so it was a wonderful way for us to have our boys and our extended family be a part of Katie's adoption, since they obviously could not in Russia.

We all walked over to the courthouse together for our hearing.  And the boys had many pep talks about courtroom behavior.....

There were two cases on the docket that afternoon:  our's and the adoption of one of my absolute favorite client's.  I was so excited to share the day with her and her family, particularly her new son!

We did a little waiting for the judge.

Then it was show time!

Why was I more nervous to testify in court here, after our adoption was already finalized, than I was in Russia?!  I think because so many people we care so much about were there, I got a little teary.

There were a lot of people watching - this is not what it was like the first time!

Bert, my dear friend and the attorney I work for, asked us a series of questions about Katie's adoption, and the judge asked me to explain the process to him.

The judge asked Chris to talk about how Katie is fitting into our family and how things have gone since we brought her home.

About ten minutes later we were done!  Chancellor Corlew was so kind and talked about how lucky he is to get to do adoptions and see happy times in his court.  It was a fun process for us, and I'm so glad we did it.

Katie did great, and she looked so adorable!

The boys did so well.  

And said, "Court is boring".

I'm guessing we won't have any lawyers!

We had a fabulous day, and were so glad to share it with people who are special to us!