Adoption Finalization

This morning was our adoption finalization hearing.  We officially adopted TongJie as our son on May 8 in China, but the US finalization that we did this morning makes it so he can get a US birth certificate, which will make things easier than only having a Chinese birth certificate.  The finalization is not required, but our adoption agency strongly recommends adoptive families to do it because it makes it so much easier for the child when he gets older and does school sports, applies for a job, or anything like that.  So, now it's doubly official that TongJie is part of our family!  We invited family members to attend the hearing and it was fairly quick and easy, and TongJie did a great job.

We had to wait for a little while before the hearing.  TongJie played with Grandparents and cousins, and tried on YeYe's hat.

When the judge came in, the hearing got started.

Here we are at the end, with our attorney and the judge:

It was fun that my sister and her family got to attend the hearing.  They just happened to be visiting from Montana this week, so it was neat that they got to be there.

Just like always, TongJie has been loving to go outside.  He can hear the door open from anywhere in the house and comes running.  He gets especially jealous when Albert gets to go out but he doesn't.  We've had a few days of really nice spring-like weather, perfect for going for nice long walks.

TongJie hadn't been in his stroller since probably September, and we pulled it out the other day.  We noticed how much bigger he is in it now!

Here's a picture from last May for comparison:

After being pushed in the stroller for awhile, TongJie decided that he wanted to get out and walk.  Then he pushed it for awhile!

We had lunch outside the other day, and TongJie got a kick out of that.

Last week we had a fun Valentine's Day dinner.  We had heart-shaped pizza (with a crust made from cauliflower, cottage cheese, and eggs), gelatin hearts, radishes, and salad:

Me and Jeff thought the dinner was great, but TongJie wasn't as impressed as we were.  He doesn't like pizza very much (even pizza with real crust), which is funny because it's my favorite.  He was also disappointed that the radishes were not fruit.

The other day after putting TongJie to bed, I came out of his bedroom to find Chestnut and Albert together on the couch.  It's so rare for them to be this close together that I took a picture:

Good old Albert!