Officially a family of four according to California

We had an exciting day yesterday! Surrounded by family, we visited the local courthouse for our readoption hearing and a very friendly judge pronounced our adoption of Ro and Ree final and approved by the state of California. Wow, great moment in a string of great moments with this adoption. If you're not familiar with readoption, it's an optional process that basically gives our girls all the same documents that every other American-born kiddo has. It'll make life a whole lot easier when it comes time for things like soccer, baseball, girl scouts, etc. Since everything went well, we'll get the girls' California birth certificates in about eight months. The girls enjoyed themselves immensely-- playing in the halls with their cousins, joyously mopping the floors with their new dresses, smiling cheekily at the bailiff, and then saying "oooo!" when we first got our certificates. One of my favorite things was when we were all walking out and I glanced back over my shoulder to see little cousins William and Lauren giving the judge a hug. Fun! Afterwards we took the family to a celebratory dinner at PF Changs, which was really good (at least in our opinion, the girls didn't have an opinion as they fell asleep shortly before the main courses came). If you go, try the wok-charred beef -- mmmmm. The girls have been having a blast playing with their cousins from Texas all week. They grin from ear to ear and can't believe their good fortune when they wake up each morning to find that William, Lauren, and Baby Julia are Still! Here! Here are a few pictures of the court procedure. You can either view them all on one page, or in a slideshow (click "i" on the first slide if you want to turn on captions). Thanks to our awesome sis-in-law Kate for these pictures, and for the girls' cool new courthouse outfits! I'll post a wrapup of the cousin play-for-all with tons of fun family pics at week's end . PS: Please forgive the lack of blogging/emailing recently. TubaDad bet me that I couldn't stay away from the computer for a certain period of time. If I won he would watch the girls one day while I spent a day at the spa. If he won I'd watch the girls all day and he could spend a day at the golf course. Come on, a whole day at the SPA!!! Do I even need to say who won?! If you're reading this and want to join me, just yell. I'm going to schedule it sometime in the next couple of weeks.