It's Official....again

Once again, I apologize for not keeping my blog up to date, but hey-I have 5 kids, what do you expect??? :)....This entry goes back to July 7th. We appeared in court and officially re-adopted the girls in the USA. They now have Illinois birth certificates, names changed and Ava's birthday was also changed. For the last 6 moths the girls have legally been named Meskerem Darren Bodine and Tabita Darren Bodine. In Ethiopia, it is customary to give the fathers first name as the child's middle name. I wasn't real keen on the middle names and I doubt the girls would be either come high school graduation when they had to walk across the stage............ :) So, they are Ava Meskerem and Eliza Tabita now. We also asked the judge to legally change Ava's birthdate. If you remember from another post we had Ava's wrist x rayed and it showed that she was really older than what her ET birth certificate claimed. It is not unusual for birth certificates to be really off, I've heard some kids were even 2-3 years off. Ava's was about a year off judging by her language, x ray and dental exam. So we, along with the doctor decided it would be safe to move her birthday up about 6 months to make adjustments for her learning english etc.

It is never a dull moment with the Bodine gang and the court room was no different. We entered and all was well.....for a short time. I was sworn in and answering questions when the girls started fighting over a pen. The baliff quickly came to the rescue with markers and paper......but they continued to want what the other one had, OF COURSE. Meanwhile, the judge keeps talking and the court reporter keeps typing....I look at her like "oh my gosh, I am so sorry". She just smiled and kept on typing. No one said a word to us about the commotion but I bet the look on our faces said it all. After all was said and done, Darren joked on Facebook that he was surprised that we weren't found in contempt of court!!

So, all paperwork is done other then post placement reports. YEAH!!! Here is our picture of the final outcome with our lawyers, judge and the whole Bodine gang.