Adoption Party

I would love to here more about the candle lighting ceremony. We are going to court and having an adoption party this Friday. I am still trying to come up with some things to personalize the party. Thank you!

We would like to celebrate the adoption of our children from foster care but would like it to be family theme celebration v/s adoption themed--it is a sibling group and the adoption finalizations occured throughout the year...also we have 2 birth children we want to include...so I'd like to get each member of our family a symbol of our new union--maybe jewelry? But the ages are 8, 9, 10, 17, 19 and both male and female--ideas? Also, we want to encourage people to give a family gift if they choose to bring one---ideas on that? Our family has had many ups and downs and we are still bonding, so I'd like this to be something special for everyone in the family, without anyone feeling jealous or left out... thanks for any help!

I'm thinking . . . .but while I am thinking about the gift for the children and gift ideas for the family, I thought I would throw out a couple of things I did for my daughter's adoption. One of the best gifts I received was a video of my daughter. A friend took all the pictures I had taken of my now AD and put them to music to make a video out of it. She actually used a company. If you are interested, I can look on the DVD to find the company name. Just PM me. Another idea is a family portrait. You know how pictures frames have a border around them when you have them professionally done? Well, you can go to a frame shop or a Michaels or something and get some of that card stock. I had them cut a whole out the size of the picture. Then, I asked people at the Adoption Party to please write a note to my daughter. It is beautiful and something she will have for a lifetime. Just a thought! Anyway, I will go back to thinking about what you can do jewelry wise for the children and what gifts would be good for a family. Congratulations on all your adoptions! That's very exciting!

Wondering what the candle lighting ceremony is? We hope that we are one day blessed with being able to adopt as well as to continue to foster and would love ideas on how to make a special celebration

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply...I love the video idea and it just so happens that I recently invested in computer software to make movies like that---I got it to convert our old vhs movies into dvds...so I am thinking of adding in the new children chonologially as they arrived into our family onto the dvds as well? Also, I have been making family caricature invites on Vista print and they are turning out so cute! Here's the wording--do you think I'm breaking any ettiquette rules? Our Family invites you to a

"Celebration of Our Family"

Celebrating B and S 20th wedding anniversary

DD/DS recent/pending graduations

ds/dd Adoptions Being Finalized

Thanks so much for celebrating with us!

No gifts are necessary,

but if you choose to bring one,

please consider a family gift?

Also, I am ordering pens with our family caricature on them...

What do you think?

Just some thoughts....for jewlry how about necklaces with the initial of your last name. The boys could have more masculine ones maybe pewter charms on leather type strap, while the girls could be more feminine necklaces. Simple rings could work for boys and girls. Maybe a simple band with an inscription. We felt like the adoption of our older daughter felt more like a marriage in that we were blending our families together, so a ring symbol might feel appropriate with older ones. As far as a celebration, maybe a "Our family is complete" theme. This would include everyone, rather then just focusing on the adopted children. You could ask that if people want to give a gift maybe a donations so that you could get a really nice family photo taken by a local photographer. We adopted our youngest a year ago and have a mix of bio and adopted children. One family gave us a sign for our home with our last name on it and a sweet saying. If all the adoptions will be finalized soon maybe new matching Christmas Ornaments for everyone to hang on the tree this year. The older ones will have them to take on with them as they move on, and newer children to your family would have a new special ornament to add to the tree this year. We had a celebration at a local Children's Museum. We were able to rent the facility out in the evening when it is closed to the public. It was fun because so many of our friends have younger children and the adults could visit and eat. It was our way of celebrating the the end of a long process and thanking all our friends who had supported us during a rough couple of years.

Our saying was: Fate (or God, I can't remember) brought us together Love made us a Family But she is our only AD and my husband has a son who was 28 at the time and never lived with us. So we had huge 8x10 pics of her in a "timeline" showing different major events and had all of us in there with her.

I love your ideas. Sounds like you already have the ball rolling quite well. When is your Celebration taking place?

I'd like to hear about it. I plan on having an adoption party in the spring; I finalized the adoption of my 2 youngest this past January.

Planning for Dec. 13---hoping the holdiays won't cause too many people to be busy---doing it right after church in our fellowship hall...the kids are singing in the service that day, so I'm inviting anyone who would like to come for that as well. I ordered a persoanlized mug for each child and am filling it with things they like. These will be the centerpieces for the tables. Also, I am planning to do some activity tables that honor our family hobbies/traditions. We will have a lego table, a box of dress up costumes, a gingerbread house to decorate and a scrapbooking area--all located at one end of the fellowship hall. At the other end we will play a dvd of of our family memories...we have pens to give out with our family caricatures on them. And I'm trying to make some handmade paper ornaments with seeds implanted in them to use as favors as well.

Also, still trying to find some afordable bands or charms with our family initials...I like the idea above about using leather cords for the guys---affordable and masculine!

Your family sounds a bit like mine. We have more then just our adopted sibling group. The sibs were adopted over a year, so they don't have the same court date. After it was all final, we rented out a candy shop and had an evening there with lots of catered desserts. Our kids were older and younger. We had a picture book for each child and guests signed or left a message in each. There were candy bags to go home with all guests and a live local band. The played requested songs and we made sure each of the kid's favorites were on their list. Prior to the party, we had god-parents and family come to the candy shop for a special sit-down meal. Then we cleaned up the tables and started the party. We also have family rings now. Each person has one. They are simple textured silver bands with "name, our son" or "name, our daughter" on the inside. We gave them to the girls with a necklace and got them big enough to fit when they are grown. Also, my husband and I each got one with all of the childrens names in there. We catored the children's favorite desserts and had them involved in all of the planning. I can say that it is truly one of the best nights of my life. Blessings to your family!

Wow, that sounds like something my middle one would love! He is really into sweets, which is one of the reasons we are doing a gingerbread house. So, now that we are talking about all the happiness of this occasion, I have a question: I am concerned that the party may actually cause some behavior issues in some family members as well. This is why I am trying to make it a "family" party celebrating many events, not just the adoption. One of the children has a way of sabotaging things like this---he has Attachment type symptoms and we are still trying to get him bonded with the family. Also, our bio children have mixed feelings about this being finalized---they have seen some of the issues we are dealing with and can't understand why we would want to make it final. Also, several family members have become distant or worse since we started fostering. Has anyone else had issues like this? How did you deal with it, especially at the party?

I also am struggling with the adoption party. I originally had thought we would do it the same week as our court date largely because we had out of state guests coming to celebrate with us, but since we ended up getting a court date without much notice as in 4 weeks, we end up finalizing days before Christmas which is a nice Christmas present but is proving more challenging for family preparations, so we will be holding off on our adoption party till Jan. I have one other FD who TPR is scheduled for later this month, but I want to make sure that she is included as much as possible in the adoption party, but at the same time I will have an adoption party for her when her time comes. But we are really in the early stages of bonding as a family, so any thoughts on how to include her and not diminish the significance of my boys adoption? Also, please pass on the candle lighting ceremony Also, any other thoughts on gifts for the children? I have been looking but my kids are 11 and 6 and most of what I have seen is geared for babies, plus my kids have been in foster care with me for 2 1/2 years. But they have both decided to make some changes to their names with the adoption so I would like to incorperate that

Hi softball, I too have trouble figuring out how to include everyone, but finally just called it a family celebration--listed an importan event in each child's recent history---graduation, adoption, etc. And we got lots of personalized stuff as I mentioned above from Vistaprint. I got the kids address stickers with their new full names, stamps of their name and even some hats, notecards, and notebooks. What I love about the stickers is my newly adopted son can put these stickers on all his school papers, right over his old name---he's really excited about it since his name changed in the middle of the school year. We also made a mug with each child's pic---I will fill each one differently with some of their favorite things (Skittles, popcorn, beef jerky, etc) Each child will have one table decorated for them with the mug in the middle (probably on a stand for hieght) and pictures of them, artwork done by them, etc. surrounding the mug. We alo received a Christmas ornament made with seed paper---you can plant it later and grow a pine tree. I have found the way to make more of these myself and will give them out as party favors, with a poem about love "growing". The kids are helping to make them. Well, 13 days to the party! I'll let try to keep updated.