[brookeer]

We are adopting our fd (1yr old) next month. YEA!!! I want to plan a special celebration. Could you please share how you marked the special occasion? I'm having trouble coming up with wording on the invitation. I am a scrapbooker and of course I want to handmake all the invitations. We have a room in mind to rent and have about 30 people in attendance. I'm so super excited!!! The big day is in Dec., but the party won't be until Jan. Please share!!!

[timhea]

I'm disappointed that there aren't any replies.
We're adopting this month, and we want to celebrate, too, so we're going to Chuck E. Cheese.
Cheesy, but it's what she wants.

[nawlinsmom]

I had a big celebration 2 weeks after my son's finalization which was also his 3rd. birthday. I rented a room and had about 120 people there, we have a huge family. Anyway I rented a room next to a wave pool, since it was August and I went with a "Under the Sea Theme". I decorated the room with balloons on tables for both his birthday and "Happy Gotcha Day" which I found on the internet. We had two separate cakes one for each with our family day on one cake. As the children came in they each got a sand bucket where we put their names on it. We had games set up around the room which I got from Oriental Trading, Dophin Ring Toss, A velcro fish dart game, pick a duck out of a tub of water, Whale ring toss, and a Fish bean bag throw. As the kids would play they would win tickets which they kept in their buckets. At the end I brought out two wrapped boxes one for girls and one for boys where I had prizes hidden in shreaded paper, they then dug with their shovels through the paper for their prizes. We ended the day with Pinata's which were stuffed with candy. I served fried chicken strips, potato salad, chips, had a cheese and fruit tray and blue punch with fish ice cubes floating. All and All, I had a wonderful time and the children just loved it, but most importantly the family was all together in celebration of my son whom still talks about his party. Have fun and let us know what you do.

[traceyk]

We had a "Meet the baby" party when she turned 1 mo. old(we got her right out of the hospital) and rented a hall and had about 60 people there. DH did a little speech and held her in the air and formally presented her to the party goers. I even registered at Babies R Us. Then when we finalized we had another party for just family at our home and we planted a tree in honor of our daughter.

[jheald]

We had a baby shower thrown for Isaac when he was about 2 months old. That took care of introducing many of our friends to him that we don't see very often. For his finalization our adopted grandma (yes...we adopted some friends to be local grandparents) came with us to the courthouse and then she took us out to McDonalds. My dd got to choose the location! LOL She had a picture frame for us to use that says, "for this child I prayed," a book for Isaac that we put photographs in and some stuff for our daughter. That's all we did. No big celebrations here!

Janet

[MamaTo6]

We haven't finalized yet, but we sure did celebrate his pre adoptive placement day. We had had our son with us since he was 15 days old, but for the next 14 months we could only hope that we would one day be his legal parents. Tpr happened in May and last June 15th we signed the papers that we were officially chosen to be his adoptive home.

We had a big bar b que with family, friends and close neighbors. We ended up with all ages. Dh did the bar b que and I made up tons of salads and deviled eggs etc. We put up balloons and streamers. We brought the stereo speakers outside and played music too.The kids all ran around having a blast. The adults mostly sat around the patio tables eating and drinking and talking about kids. It was a busy day but we did have almost a month to plan it.

We will finalize next May/June and we will not have a big party. This time dh and I plan on doing something with just the 3 of us. We have also decided (not that anybodys asked) that we will not be celebrating adoption day year after year.

[jandn]

On the day we finalized we had a small adoption party that evening with about 30 friends and family dropping in throughout the night. We had a special journal that we asked everyone to write a small letter to Lili so she would know she was surrounded by love on the day she joined our family. We bought her the adoptionshop adoption medallion as her special joining the family gift. (we planted a Lily for her on Gotcha day) We put a big sign in the yard and decorated the house with balloons and ribbons.


We are having another adoption party at my MIL's this weekend in Chicago. About 100 people are planning on attending.... I'm glad I'm not in charge of that one! She sent out cute invatations for the part and we also sent out adoption announcements that we made ourselves with Postcard printer paper from Sams.

[Lexmom]

We didn't really throw a finalization party. We did have a meet the baby party when ds was 3 months old and after ptr. In our state, finalization doesn't happen until six months after ptr. Since friends and family kept wanting to "pop in" to see the new addition, we decided to have a small party at our house. We had about 50 people, but it was outside in our yard. Fortunately, it was a beautiful early fall day. We didn't expect gifts, but a lot of friends and family brought gifts and turned it into a kind of shower.

For his finalization, we just had immediate family (grandma and grandpa) at the court with us and then we went out to breakfast.

[sugarbabysmommy]

We had a party for babe with about 35 people when babe was 3 months old, we didn't finalize until babe was six months old at which time we had only grandmas and grandpas with us for court and lunch. The party turned into a gift giving affair which we didn't intend. For many this was their first introduction to babe. We asked that party goers bring a letter, favorite poem, book, or song lyric, or even a family recipe to mark the occassion and all of them have been kept for babe. I made sure we had extra paper and pens for those who needed it. Babe was given some truly wonderful sentiments. We had balloons, a cake, great food buffet style. We put out a few toys for the other kids and had a movie just in case, but mostly they basically ran around and had fun.