December 19, 2008....Caitlyn is ALL ours!!!

We went to court today and finalized Caitlyn's adoption. We had a hearing before Judge Charles Hart. He was amazing, he cleared the courtroom for our privacy, and even let us take pictures. It was a GREAT DAY!!!!!! Steve and I both got choked up when the Judge proclaimed "from this day forward this child shall be known as Caitlyn Elizabeth Grove." He then stood up and said "lets take some pictures"! So here you have them......

Caitlyn with our attorney.
Caitlyn with Judge Hart
The Happy family with Judge Hart

We have a court date!!

I have actually known about our court date for about a week now.  I am just now getting around to posting on the blog.  Catie Beth will be FOREVER OURS on Dec. 19, 2008.  This day has a lot of significance to me as last year on Dec. 19 we lost our first referral.  I Love how God chose this day for us to finalize Catie Beth's adoption.  It is amazing how in one year God brought our adoption journey full circle.  We now have the most amazing little girl that fits perfectly in our family.  God is So Good!!!!

Wow you all know how to pray!!!

I got a FedEx pkg today.  It contained our Consent to Adopt.  It was dated Oct 28th, the same day as my last post asking you to pray.  We now have all the paperwork needed to finalize the adoption.  PRAISE GOD!!!!!!  Steve is calling our Attorney right now to get things set up.  

Post placement reports

We went out of town last weekend and when we returned we found all of the post placement reports and our updated homestudy in the mail. YEAH!!!  We are so excited!!!  The last document, the consent to adopt has been requested and should arrive in the next few weeks.  As soon as we get that document we can file the petition to the court and finalize Catie's adoption.  Pray that is arrives fast.  We have been told that it usually takes 6 weeks from the time you file your petition until the court date is set.  We really want/need to have the adoption finalized before the year is over.  

Last post placement visit DONE!!!!!

We drove up to the KC area to attend a Holt family picnic yesterday.  

While we were there we had our final post placement visit with our social worker.  This is Joann.  She is so sweet and we really enjoyed visiting with her again.  She told us that she has already requested the Consent for Adoption.  Due to our impending move Holt is going to rush the last few documents for us so we can finalize before the move.  

I tried to get a picture of Catie Beth and Joann for Catie's life book.  Catie decided that she wanted nothing to do with going to Joann.  I tried to hand her to Joann but Catie burst into tears and decided that she was not leaving my arms.  She has a new fear of strangers.  This is a wonderful thing and proves that she is attaching very well.  All our hard work is paying off.  

It was neat for the kids to see other families that look like ours.  They were so excited to do all the events and play with all the other kids.  Caleb was a big help and helped Joann with all the games.  Sweet Boy!!!
Catie loves to swing!!  Especially with her Daddy!!

Just Because....She's so CUTE!!!

2nd post placement visit....DONE!!!

Our visit went very well.  Our social worker said that Catie Beth seems very attached to us and is doing remarkably well.  We enjoyed our visit with Joann.  She laughed at the boys and their usual antics.  Such as CJ telling the other two boys to "Shhhh.....don't do that.....Joann is here" She laughed and laughed at that and said that only another mother of three boys could relate to our fun household.  Joann informed us that today was our last visit in our home.  We will meet her in KC for the final visit at the end of Sept.  She is hoping to have our Consent to Adopt by the end of Oct.  So that our attorney can file a petition to the court.  Yeah!!!!!  Things are moving right along.