BIRUK'S READOPTION

November 10, 2010

Biruk John was officially "re-adopted" into our family.

By re-adopting him, we are making the adoption final in the US (he has legally been ours since March -this is really just a formality) which means he can get a US birth certificate stating John and I as his father and mother...AND we can apply for his US citizenship now!

With Elizabeth, she came home as a US citizen...but when we adopted Biruk the process was different and he came home as a "legal resident"...we needed to re-adopt him so he could gain US citizenship.

here we all are in the courtroom

after the hearing
it's offical -we're "suitable parents" and Biruk can officially be ours!

what's fun is this is the exact same judge and the exact same court room we had for Elizabeth's re-adoption. :)


thanks to my dad who was able to come along and take pics and help with the other 3 kids!


And as we did after Elizabeth's readoption, we headed to Dun*kin' Donuts to celebrate!!

it was hard to get a good pic of all of us cuz of the sun!!!

celebrating was JUST what Biruk needed after the court hearing.

We had told the kids a day or 2 ahead of time we'd all be going to court to make Biruk officially part of our family.
Because Biruk didn't understand exactly what was going on, he was nervous.
very nervous.

and insecure.

He exhibited alot of insecure behaviors for those few days before court.

A re-adoption hearing takes all of about 8 minutes.

seriously.
when it was all over and nothing bad happened. you could tell Biruk was relieved. :)

I'm glad we had already planned a celebratory donut snack for him!

This little experience helped to re-enforce we will keep him safe and that he can trust us.