Officially a McCawley!

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Well, today was the day we've been waiting for: We were able to go to children's court in Johannesburg, South Africa and adopt this sweet little 3 1/2 year old lady into our family!

I introduce to you, our daughter, Nomathemba Hope McCawley! (pronounced: No-ma-tim-ba):


Our morning started off rocky with tired kids who refused to get dressed and/or complained about breakfast choices. We needed to be out the door early, so as you can imagine, it was a little stressful. Once we were able to get the kids loaded into the car their moods started to improve and everyone began to get excited about what today meant for our family. Whew, step one complete.



We got to the court at 8:25 am and ended up waiting in a tiny hallway outside the Magistrate's door for over two hours. All I can say is, thank goodness this mama thought ahead and packed a lot of snacks and water! Here's a picture of the waiting area and yes--we DID buy our kids suckers to bribe them to sit still since they weren't allowed to eat them until court was over:



Once court ended we were free to celebrate and drove over to Moyo (an authentic South African Restaurant with live music) to have lunch as a family. Here's a few pictures:






All in all, it was a stressful, fun, exciting and memorable day for our family! What God started long ago has come to fruition. Seven hundred and thirty two days later and we are officially a family. Amazing day! 

And, simply because we are able to share pictures of her beautiful face now, here's a few that we had to black out on previous posts:






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