One BIG happy family!

We woke up this morning as a family of 5 and now we are a family of 10! Today was amazing. When we woke up we got showers and put on the same clothes that we had been wearing for the last 3 days. Yeah! Anyway, we ate breakfast and by that time it was time to go and meet the kids. When we turned onto thier street our hearts were beating so fast, our stomachs were in knots... we didn't know what to expect. Were these children going to like us? Were we going to be what they expected? Or were they going to be disappointed? We didn't know. But here we were turning onto thier street, then walking through the gate that led up thier house. When we walked in there they were all smiles and Robert the 2 year old just ran up and jumped into Mary Janes arms and gave her the biggest hug. Then when he saw me he stuck out his arms for me to take him. They were all so happy to see us. We visited for about an hour and a half (I've got video that I will edit and post later). It was time for us to leave and go to court and petition the judge for our new children so they all walked us to the front gate and then Ana Carolina in her sweet little voice said, "bye bye Mom and Dad see you in a little while(in portuguese of course)". It stopped me in my tracks... it was all I could do to not break down and start crying right there on the sidewalk. It just blew me away that she was already referring to us as Mom and Dad. We had been told that they would probably call us aunt and uncle or even by our first names for a while. We waved goodbye and Mary Jane and I went to the courthouse while my mother-in-law and father-in-law took Matthew and Maryssa back to the Hotel. When we arrived at the courthouse we had to meet with a case worker first. She had to go over thier entire history with us. There were a few times when she was telling us some of the things that had happened to the kids that I had to really take a few deep breaths and count to ten. I believe that if I saw thier biological father on the street I would probably put the beatdown on him (Of course I would ask for forgiveness later!) because these kids should never have been exposed to this type of heartache at such a young age. After this meeting we met with the judge and he granted our petition for custody. Now it was time to go get our kids! When we got back they were all ready to go with no reservations. When we got back to the hotel our luggage finally arrived (praise God, I'm sure everyone was tired of seeing me in my Kirby Pucket Twins jersey!) So, we took some of the toys we had packed for the kids and we played outside for a few hours. It was so much fun playing with little kids again. We had pizza for dinner and Diogo prayed. it was so sweet. Amidst bathing the kids and getting them ready for bed tonight it finally hit me... I've got 5 brand new kids! We noticed that Marlon kneeled by his bed and prayed before he got into bed... I wonder what he prayed? Does he know how much our Heavenly Father loves him? I know he will one day if he doesn't now. The icing on the cake for me was when I was tucking Ana Carolina into bed tonight and she hugged and kissed me and looked me in the eyes and said, "I love you Dad." I'm sitting here crying as I write this because I'm totally blown away that the Lord has allowed us to do this. He is so good to us. Well, I better get to bed now. Thank you for praying for us.

Love Ya,
Jim, Mary Jane, Michael, Maryssa, Marlon, Matthew, Ana Carolina, Diogo, Gabriel and Robert