It's Official!!

Kaleigh Anna Racine...has a nice ring to it huh? This morning about 9:30 Kaleigh officially and legally  became ours forever. We were sworn into court over the phone. We had to answer a few questions stating we knew that we were responsible for her and then we were asked "Why do you want to adopt Kaleigh?" How do you answer that in a short way? How do you put into words why we want to have this sweet girl be legally ours? There aren't enough words, but this is how we answered:

Heath-"We love her and we cannot imagine our lives without her"

Me-"She is my daughter and just like I told her this morning, it's been official in our hearts from the beginning, but today it becomes officially official."

At that the judge said he had signed the paperwork and she was forever ours!! This day marks for us the goodness of God to us in a real tangible way. We prayed and prayed for a child and God saw it fit for us to be Kaleigh's parents. Many people prayed, donated money, gave items for our auction, cried with us all the times we didn't get chosen, rejoiced with us when we did get chosen and have loved on Kaleigh since she's been home (and even before). All of those (and so many other things) are evidences of God's grace to us. This has in no way been an easy few years for us, but as I look at sweet Kaleigh I know this was meant to be. He had this precious gift for us and didn't want us to miss it. Our gratitude to Him also cannot be put into words.

I also can't help but think of our birth mother and her family. We are forever grateful for them and are thankful for the relationship we have with them. There will never ever be enough words for us to describe our gratitude to them. I am so thankful M chose life for her precious girl. I hope we can express to Kaleigh how wonderful M and her family are, I hope we can convey to her the amount of love they have for her. We are forever grateful M chose us to be the parents to her little girl.

Here are a few pics to document the day:

We were at the bank, waiting for the judge to call so the notary could verify who we were and we could be sworn into court. 

She's happy about it!!! We love her so much!!

This is the best shot we could get of the three of us!

HAPPY ADOPTION DAY KALEIGH!!!!