Anna is officially Anna Maria.

Anna's Birth name was Nancy, since we already had a Nancy in the family - we decided to name our daughter - Anna Maria (Anna after her grandmother in the U.S. and Maria after her Birth mother in Guatemala). So, we had to do some paperwork to make it happen. A few people asked why we re-adopted Anna - and there's a lot of reasons to do it. One is to change her name to her given name, and the other is to get a U.S. Birth Certificate, so in a few years when we have to sign her up for school - it will be an easy task, since she has a U.S. Birth Certificate, as well as all that other stuff you need a Birth Certificate for.

Since Anna came home on a R-3 Visa, the paperwork was a lot shorter - and we weren't required to appear in front of the judge to finalize the re-adoption. Mommy asked the woman if we can appear in front of the judge and the woman from the Adoption office, said for us to do that we would have to fill out the larger packet of paperwork. Then we decided that it would be fine to get her new Birth Certificate and we would just go out to lunch that day to celebrate. Well, a few days later mommy got a phone call from the adoption office and they said that we can appear in front of the Judge for Anna's Re -adoption. Mommy was so surprised and asked the woman how can that be, since we were originally told that wouldn't be an option. It turned out the Judge that did Peter's Re-adoption wanted to do Anna's too - he remembered us and our big family. So mommy was so excited she immediately said yes. Then the woman from the adoption office said - how about tomorrow? Mommy was like oh - that is tooo soon, because daddy wouldn't be able to take off from work that quick. So we picked a day (a Friday) after recess so everyone would be able to make it if they wanted to.


Aunt Carol, Aunt Jean, Aunt Karen/God Mother, Grandma, Pam and Emily all showed up for the re-adoption. Since it got over so quick and early - we all went out to breakfast (except for Pam and her daughter - that had another appt.)


It was such a nice day. It was especially nice that the Judge made an exception for us to be able to appear in court to make it complete.


Mommy thinks the Judge did this, only because he wanted to see how many grandchildren Grandma had now, because the Judge still has grandma beat by about 3 grandchildren. The Judge gave mommy his business address to keep in touch, because he would like to know how the family is doing. Mommy turned around and told the Judge that he just wanted to make sure he still had more grandchildren than my mother/grandma.