The Journey of Parenthood…

Spear’s Finalization Day Celebration: May 2020

Spear’s Finalization Day Celebration: May 2020

Spear’s adoption was finalized on May 14th 2018. We decided that we’d like to always recognize this day as a family and celebrate it in some small way together.

Nothing major. Just being together and having conversations about Spear’s journey into our family and to honor his birth family for the incredible way they blessed our lives with him.

I know “Gotcha Day” is considered offensive by some, here’s why we choose to celebrate it!

Last year was our first finalization celebration and we went to dinner at Chick-Fil-A and had donuts for dessert, again, simple!

I like the tradition of wearing our Step out in Faith shirts from our adoption fundraiser (although Kye is going to be needing a bigger one here soon!).

This year life is pretty crazy and celebrating anything in the middle of a pandemic is kinda tricky 😉

Since our Disney Rental House wasn’t able to be rented during May we went down as a family for a bit to get some things done and do some deep cleaning and updating.

Thankfully things were starting to open back up after quarantine so we had options for ways to celebrate Spear’s day as a family!

We debated going out to dinner but decided against it…after having been HOME for SO LONG I didn’t want Spear’s wild man toddler self to be going out to eat for the first time in months and spend his special day having to discipline him!

Instead Britt and I ran a couple of errands and picked up Chic-Fil-A for dinner as well as some donuts and ice cream for dessert.

I didn’t even realize when we picked it up that we’d eaten the same things the year prior – I guess it’s a “thing” now 😉

Spear is excited to be a BIG BOY and not sit in a high chair anymore and he loved getting to dip his food in sauces too. Anything “big kid” and he’s ALL ABOUT IT.

Britt got a chicken sandwich for the first time (our wallets are starting to hurt from these kids getting older and eating more!).

While we ate we talked about adoption. It was a chance for the older kids to ask any questions they may have had about the adoption process as well as a chance to talk about what a huge blessing Spear’s birth family gave to our family.

I brought Spear’s baby book and adoption book with us on the trip so we looked through those and talked about what the kids each remember about that time in our lives and about Spear’s birth family.

I love that they’ve all met them too and are able to tell Spear things about them!

We also went around the table and said the ways in which we are thankful for Spear.

Tess was just so precious. She didn’t ask much. Didn’t say much. Just sat silently and listened and looked at Spear the whole time with tears running down her cheeks.

It’s incredible how even at such a young age she “gets it” and just has such a deep appreciation for Spear in her life.

After we looked through the books as a family Tess wanted to show Spear some of the other pictures in his baby book. She’s such a great big sister!

We had Krispie Kreme donuts (a treat we don’t have at home!) and ice cream for dessert!

SO GOOD.

And then we went swimming together as a family.

Even though we’ve had our home pool open super early this year, Zach and I haven’t been going in (too cold!) but we have a heater on the pool at the Disney House so we warmed it up and all went swimming together.

The kids LOVE when we swim as a family and it was really such a perfect way to celebrate our core family unit.

I’m so thankful for all of my babies and for our family being complete forever! My heart is just so full!

I know it’s a simple tradition but I love it. I love the day being set aside as special and I think especially right now with everything going on in our world it’s nice to have a day to just APPRECIATE.

We’re so thankful for our family. So thankful for Spear’s birth and the sacrificial love Mama E has for him.

We’re so blessed and never want to take those blessings for granted!

Emily Parker
Latest posts by Emily Parker (see all)

You may also enjoy:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *