Why Nine?!

When we go out in public as a family we always see people counting our kids. Yes, there are nine of them. Yes, they're all ours. No, we don't run a daycare. Just a few of the millions of questions we get asked on a daily basis. "Why nine?" is without a doubt my favorite. We're a blended family, I had my one kids, he had his four kids, my ex was in jail and I was granted custody of his three kids. That right there gave us eight, it was easy with eight we had it all figured out and handled it like champs. Then I got a call from our social worker. My daughter's dad had a son who needed a home like NOW! They had him in temporary foster care, but the family who had him were just days away from losing their licenses with no plan of renewal. I sat down with Jason and talked to him about it, we decided to get guardianship of the little guy. Our intent at the time was just to take care of him until his dad could get out of the situation he's in. Unfortunately for all parties involved-well maybe not us-his dad isn't going to be able to take over custody so we are starting the process of adoption. Because this is such an interesting adoption case it isn't really like any other adoption I have ever heard of at least. It's considered a "private family member adoption" which can either make things more complicated or easier. Right now it seems to be making it easier, the only thing that could stop us now is if my ex decides to get custody back. We just moved states so I'm not actually sure the law on that, but I do know of states where he can change his mind at any point and fight for his kids. Hopefully our new state isn't one of them because we already love the fact that it has transgender rights so I don't want this to bring us down! But to answer the question "Why nine?" it's because nine is our number, it might not be a permanent number-who knows maybe we'll add kids or sell a few!(clearly kidding!), but for now the number is nine. Nine little Butlers.