Finanlizatio​n ​Day Celebration 2019

Finalization Day Celebration 2019

Spear’s adoption was finalized on May 14th, 2018.

I know many people have feelings and thoughts about celebrating “gotcha day” so I wrote a post about it (mostly so every year I can just link to it rather than re-explain our thoughts on it each time ha!) and you can read it here!

We talked about different ideas for celebrating the day and decided to keep it super simple and low-key.

I asked about it in my Facebook Group (Not a member? You can Join Here!) and I got so many great suggestions on traditions and ways to celebrate the day Spear officially joined our family.

I LOVED the idea to make the focus on our family being complete – and WHOLE and kinda making a play on that each year doing different things that could go with the “whole” theme.

Since May 14th fell on a Tuesday it was Kid’s Night at Chick-Fil-A so I just planned to take the kids as soon as they got home from school. Allow PLENTY of time to play in the play place (which I knew Spear would LOVE) and then get some dinner! Easy and simple!

I also had us all wear our “Step Out in Faith” Shirts that we used as a fundraiser for our adoption journey. I’d love for us to all wear them every year so I need to order more of them (for example, Spear doesn’t have a shirt!).

step out in faith shirt

On our way I explained to the kids why we were celebrating and asked if they had ANY questions about anything.

I think it’s super important to always keep the lines of communication open with my kids, especially when it comes to the topic of adoption.

As they get older they may have different feelings and thoughts on the topic and will surely have questions that may be deeper than they have right now.

Britt wanted to understand what happened when we adopted Spear. She wanted to understand the WHY so we talked through how much Mama E loves Spear and how HUGE of a decision that was and how strong she was to make it.

Britt said she just can’t believe Spear didn’t come from my belly because he just is so meant to be our baby 🙂 It was very sweet!

It’s also a good idea to be nice and early for Kid’s Night and it helps keep the chaos down to play first! Zach was able to meet us there soon after we arrived 🙂

Yay for MR COW!

Along with our CFA we also stopped by and picked up donuts on our way as I loved the idea of eating donuts to celebrate our “WHOLE” family (like donut have a HOLE get it, get it?)

Spear was cracking me up because he was choosing to eat his GRAPES OVER his donut! What!?! Who does that?!? Ha!

Our adoption journey was put on our hearts in a big way and a lot of that had to do with other adoptive families being open about their journeys and sharng their stories with us.

I try to be mindful of that when it comes to telling others about how Spear joined our family. You never know who may have adoption on their heart and how his story may help guide them on their path!

Wearing our shirts we had some people ask us about them and what we were celebrating so it was a nice opportunity to share a bit. It’s always fun to see people’s reactions because they ALWAYS say “he looks JUST like you guys!” And I always say that God had the perfect plan!

finalization day

So thankful for the final piece of our family puzzle and that we are an entire year out from the completion of our adoption journey!

If you have adoption on your heart I recommend reading through our story here!

adoption t shirts
Emily Parker

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