Note the mad glint in my eye

It's not a coincidence that they look like velociraptors.

Have you ever really, really wanted to strangle people, while being forced to be absolutely polite in every way? Ever since I hired a lawyer, I’ve specifically wanted to strangle her secretary. First, she never ever returned my phone calls. Ever. Then, she just forgot to file the paperwork for an early adoption. As if it wasn’t her JOB to do so. As if I didn’t pay her firm $800 to do so. And then, though this wasn’t her fault, she called and postponed the adoption once again. So by the time I got to court and my actual lawyer showed up, I was in a high state of nervous energy and stress which could probably have powered downtown Salt Lake had the technology to harness it existed.

Grandma M and Mickie. The boys aren't in pain, they're just pretending to smile.

The lawyer herself was very nice — everyone was very nice — but none of them cared that I was about to explode.  C’s family came in from out of town, which was awesome, and I really really didn’t want to tell them that something had gone wrong and we were going to have to postpone again.

The Official Adoption Pic

Now, those of you who know me are aware that I am perfectly capable of making up horrific scenarios like the adoption falling through at the last minute, and believing fervently in said scenarios for irrational reasons, but given my past experience with the State and my lawyer, you have to admit I had some reason to be nervous.

Well, everything went swimmingly. No children spat at anyone, no paperwork was accidentally forgotten, and we said our vows adequately.

They were much like traditional wedding vows — to care for, comfort, educate, and so forth, said child forever, and you can’t change your mind.  Yes, that was part of the vow. You can’t change your mind.  Of course, if C and I were going to change our minds it would probably have been 8.5 months ago, so that part was easy to rattle off.  And then we took a picture, and then some more pictures, and then we left. And yes, I managed to be polite the whole time.

So it’s done–we’ve officially adopted them, and they are ours forever.  Words can’t describe how relieved and happy I am!

We’ll be throwing some sort of celebration party after the sealing, so those of you who want to pinch their little cheeks or tickle them until they pee, you’re welcome to do so then.  That probably won’t happen until late May or June, so if you have preferences let C or I know, because we haven’t decided on a date yet.

Yay for the Mortensens!

I had the privilege of escorting Mr. Mimic and Captain Flail to the ward Easter egg hunt. They enjoyed themselves immensely and had no trouble figuring out how things worked. They were limited to twelve eggs each, and I didn’t really have to follow them around counting for them. Even the Mimic seemed to have things under control.

They had such a great time and when we got home, Mr. Mimic ate about three quarters of the candy he’d found and promptly ran upstairs to vomit it into the toilet. I tried to convince him that the reason his tummy hurt is because he ate too much candy, but he can’t seem to find it in his heart to blame the candy for his troubles.

All in all, it was a great experience.

Woops! I almost forgot to post part 3. We went over to Grandma A’s for a special birthday dinner. Anne made a cake. It was just as good as it looked.

We all got to sing “Happy Birthday” in our own way. The Captain needed a little help blowing out the candles though.

Grandpa and Grandma T also were able to make it and both the Captain and Mr. Mimic really enjoyed having them there. It means a lot to both of them. They brought the captain a birthday present that was fun for the whole group.

So we invited five or six of Captain Flail’s buddies over on the Saturday following his actual birthday for a two and half hour extravaganza. It was quite a bit of work, but pretty fun. I think the hightlights were the spicy Cheetos and the treasure hunt, but he did seem to really enjoy his presents.  I filmed him opening each of his presents and put each up on youtube except for the first present which I filmed sideways. . .oddly enough.  I guess that mandate to get more vertical oriented pictures was taken a little too literally.

We have tons of photos and videos from the good Captain’s birthday, so I guess we’ll split it into parts. Since we split the celebrations into multiple days, I guess that makes sense. The first day was his actual birthday, and we celebrated by presenting him with a new bike. We had a good time surprising him with it and then trying to teach him how to get on it. It was quite a bit bigger than his last bike, we finally worked out a system that he’s since mastered (he walks it up to a curb and gets on – the extra three or four inches are just enough.)