after waiting 256 days (that is 8 months, 13 days), we became the legal parents of Declan!

our original court date was august 19th, but due to circumstances beyond our control or understanding, our final adoption hearing was rescheduled to today. while the state laws of indiana require a 3 month period for the finalization of our adoption, the state laws of nevada (where dexwas born) require a 6 month waiting period. so we’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for this day to happen for us.

 
and when we arrived on time for our appointment, we learned that we’d have to wait some more. 2 hours in fact. 2 hours in a stuffy hallway with an 8 month old and a 17 month old was interesting (our morningstar family entourage).
add in a 4 year old, an 18 month old, a 3 month old and a 4 month old, and it was amazing there weren’t more meltdowns. and that was just the hallway. there were even more babies and children in the actual waiting area for the court room. all during naptime!
i was so pleased by the good behaviors of our boys. despite the waiting, the warmth, the boredom & the hunger, dex & jake did great!

when it was finally our family’s turn in the queue of 6 final adoption hearings, it lasted all of 15 minutes. a few questions posed to jon & i about the adoption process and then the judge approved our request. YAY! oh, and dex was a amazing during all of the proceedings as well. we are greatly blessed to have a wonderful son with a joyful disposition.

and now at 8 months, he’s so fun to be around. yes, there’s been some rough fussy phases that we’ve endured. but once he’d made it through the developmental struggle, the fussies hibernate for a few weeks. some of the fun things he’s learned or currently learning:

and that’s just the things i can recall at this point!

thank you family & friends for joining us on this journey. we’ve appreciated your support & prayers during this time, and we know how loved we all are. We are the happy, blessed parents!

our lives changed forever with the addition of little man to our family. some days it’s hard to believe we’re parents. other days we feel like we’ve been run over by the ever-changing, fast-growing needs of our little man.

but we are so blessed by him. so very blessed.  Declan really is such a joy. and every day just keeps getting better.

some updates on things he’s doing so far:

• he can roll over from tummy to back and back to tummy
• he can sit by himself for long periods of time
• so now he prefers sitting to being flat – which might delay crawling at this rate
• more than that, he prefers standing to sitting – which is a lot of work for mommy & daddy since he can’t do this on his own at all
• he sleeps 11 hrs a night (if we don’t put him to bed too late) without waking up
• finally the majority of his naps are longer than 30 minutes!
• his foray into baby foods include carrots, squash, peaches, applesauce, bananas & cereal.  he prefers applesauce, bananas & carrots.
• he hates baby oatmeal but loves baby brown rice cereal
• he is a constant babbler; all day long he has something to say about nothing in particular
• reading is already a favorite activity
• his daddy is his favorite story-teller
• he’s started to kick when he’s swimming
• when he’s learning a new activity, he looks very serious & rarely smiles (should be interesting when he’s older and playing sports)

God knew what He was doing when He placed Declan into our family. He definitely is the boy for us!