One of the greatest blessings of building our family has been watching the kids build relationships, come to love each other and claim each other as siblings.

This picture is from last night and is of Nathan and Mercy. Nathan was our first child, and was our oldest child, until we adopted Mercy and her sister, Des. Mercy is a year older than Nathan. Her and Des came to us three years ago, when Mercy was nine years old, Nathan was eight and Des was six. Many "experts" would have strongly discouraged us from adopting these two girls (and in fact we were discouraged by several social workers for a variety of reasons). It's a good thing I have a rebellious streak. :)

In the adoption world, one of the big "no no's" is adopting a child that is older than your oldest child. I have written before about being an adoption rule breaker, but each of our adoption decisions have been made carefully and prayerfully.

When we were deciding to adopt the girls, I felt strongly that Nathan would do o.k. with an older sister. I would not have adopted a boy older than Nate, as he is definitely "the fearless leader of boys" around this joint, but Josh and I both thought he would adjust fine to a big sister.

I also think that these adoption rules tend to think a whole lot about the children already in the home, and not much about the kids being adopted. Sure, if we had been the parents of two teenagers when we adopted Mercy and Des, that would have been a perfect situation in the eyes of many social workers as it was not "disrupting birth order" in our family, however, it would have been disrupting things for Mercy, who was used to being the oldest child.

We put a lot of thought into our children's personalities. We spent some time with the girls and we decided to go for it. There was a lot of adjustment for everyone. Nathan had to get used to having an older sibling. Mercy had to get used to having all sorts of younger siblings, and especially brothers, who are loud, wild and rambunctious. Her and Nate are close in school and have a lot of mutual friends, so interacting with a brother all the time was something she had to get used to.

Although the kids claimed each other as siblings from the very beginning (Nate even cried after the girls went back after their first overnight visit with us), things were awkward at times early on. But the relationships formed and the kids clearly became siblings, and now it is hard to imagine that they ever lived without each other.

Mercy wrestles with the boys. The boys hide in dark corners to jump out and scare her and make her scream. They laugh, they play and they bicker at times, but what I love to see the most is the way that they support each other. When Mercy played volleyball this fall, all of her brothers and sisters were there to cheer her on.

And when Nate starred as "Rat Number One" in the school's version of "The Pied Piper" last night (it was totally adorable), Mercy really wanted to get a picture with him afterwards.

This picture sums up for me what adoption is all about to me. It's about family and love, and people coming together. It is about kids who started off with very different lives becoming family and throwing their arms around each other for a picture without even thinking about it. It's about brothers and sisters growing up with all the love, teasing, laughing, playing, bickering, cheering and unconditional support that only siblings can give.

*Picture by Erin Henderson