Sealing Day: Glad we didn't hire a photographer

So about a month ago Kerry and I looked at each other and both realized that the boys were probably ready for us to go to the temple and have them sealed to us.  For anyone who isn't LDS, we believe that families can be together forever.  Marriages (sealings) performed in the temple will continue on after death, and any children born before that sealing or who are adopted after are sealed to their parents.  Kate was sealed to us after her adoption was finalized as a baby, and although the boys adoptions were finalized the minute we entered the US, they just weren't ready for us to take them to the temple right off.  Heck, we couldn't even take them to the park without serious advance planning, 2 parents and unavoidable meltdowns.

So we were super excited at the idea of finally having them sealed to us.  We thought out what we could to do increase our chances that everything would go smoothly that day.  We arranged with the temple for my mom to stay with the kids during the time before and after the actual sealing ceremony so that there would be an adult they would know with them, we tried to prep them as best as possible during the couple weeks leading up to it, and we planned a very relaxed get together for afterward for all the family members who were coming (at my parents' house so we could escape if needed).

The best laid plans.... let's just say that the sealing was probably one of the loudest and most exciting the Jordan River Temple has seen in a long time.  Yeb had a meltdown, poor kid.  We were planning to take pictures afterward, and got one shot of the whole group, and one shot of just the kids, and then called it a day.  On our way to the temple that morning we realized that we should have arranged to have a photographer to take pictures afterward, but with how it played out it would have been wasted money.

Here is the photographic evidence of our happy eternal family:

I'm trying to look all "happy calm mother" while dealing with a tantruming 3 year old, everyone else looks nice, and my grandpa's face tells the whole story: this family is crazy.


This is both of our families.  Notice the look of death on Yeb's face.

And here are the children who were excited to smile for pictures.

For about a week after this whole thing, I was half expecting to get a phone call notifying me that the sealing wasn't valid due to one of the members of the whole thing not actually wanting to become part of our eternal family.  Now that it's been a couple weeks, we're starting to be able to laugh about it more, and we're still really glad that we did it when we did.  Looking back there are a few things I wish we had done differently leading up to the actual day that might have upped our chances of success, but we did our best with what we knew.  And after a couple weeks of thinking about it, I really don't think that another month or 2 would have made a big difference in how the day turned out.

Even though it was more exciting that we meant for it to be, being sealed was a really good thing for our family to have happen. A lot of progress has been made overall with attachment, bonding, and adjustment, and we didn't want to put off something this important any longer than we needed to.

And now we have a VERY eventful day to remember as a family.

Becoming Friends

One of the best things in the past month or so has been seeing Kate and Yeb become friends.  Kate's only 7 months older than Yeb, but when the boys first came home they didn't connect right off.  Not surprising, between the language barrier and the huge overall adjustment for both of them.  But now they've slowly become each other's preferred playmate.  They both really enjoy pretending and are able to play independently for a sizable amount of time, and both of them kind of need downtime to play each day.  I know most kids do, but it's like they NEED that downtime, because if they don't get it we have stress.  It's kind of convenient that the two of them need playtime to unwind, and Hey!, there's another kid right here who also wants to play!