In a courthouse in Hadley, 14 children and their families formalize their bond

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GORDON DANIELS

Savannah Blair sits in the foreground, with the judge's gavel. Her adoption by her foster family became final Friday, on National Adoption Day. Here, she is with her family, Blairs, from left, Daniel, 16, Jonathan, 13, Alyissa, 8 and Martha and Wayne. They posed for family photograph with First Justice Lillian Miranda in her courtroom.

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GORDON DANIELS

Laura Lamothe of Easthampton and Savannah Blair, 3. Lamothe and her husband Robert, were the foster parents for Savannah before the Blair family began caring for her.

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GORDON DANIELS

Barbara Dunn and Betsy Daley of Florence adopted a child last year, and are foster parents for three other children. They were among the speakers at National Adoption Day festivities at the Franklin/Hampshire Juvenile Court in Hadley.

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GORDON DANIELS

Martha and Wayne Blair of Chesterfield Road in Leeds, with daughters Alyissa, 8, left and Savannah, 3.

HADLEY - The Blair family keeps on growing.

Friday, Martha and Wayne Blair of Leeds officially adopted 3-year-old Savannah. It was a big to-do, attended not only by mom and dad, her big sister and two big brothers, but also by the people she calls grandma and papa and uncle and aunt.

Savannah was decked out for the occasion in an ornate pink dress. Like a lot of girls her age, she's got a thing for princesses. Lucky for her, there's a trip to Disney World in her future.

Not that she needs the finery to get attention from the adoring relatives she's accumulated over her life as a foster child.

Grandma and papa are Laura and Robert Lamothe of Easthampton, who fostered Savannah for about six months. Auntie and uncle are James and Nora Bernier, also of Easthampton, close friends of the Lamothes. The Blairs have had Savannah full-time since March.

"This is a dream come true," said Laura Lamothe. "We've become one whole new big family."

After hugs all around, everybody filed into the courtroom at Franklin/Hampshire Juvenile Court in Hadley to sit down with a judge and make the adoption official.

They weren't the only ones. Adoptions for 13 other children from Hampshire and Franklin counties were finalized at the courthouse Friday as part of National Adoption Day.

Savannah is the second child the Blairs have adopted. They adopted 8-year-old Alyissa in 2005 after serving as her foster parents for two years. The couple have two biological children, Jonathan, 13, and Daniel, 16.

Martha Blair said she became interested in foster care and adoption through dealing with foster families as a Northampton police officer. She left that job in 2002.

"After I hurt my back on the job and had to retire out , I thought, ¿I could give a child a home,'" she said.

Since then, she and Wayne, an auxiliary sheriff's deputy and driver for Northampton Plumbing, have provided a temporary foster home to 27 children, most between the ages of 9 months and 4 years.

Martha Blair said she and Wayne are in contact with members of both their adopted daughters' biological families, and they also keep ties with their former foster children.

The Blairs have carried on their parenting amid some challenges. An electrical fire badly damaged their home on Chesterfield Road in Leeds in April 2008, forcing the couple, their sons, Alyissa and another foster daughter to spend the next six months in a mobile home.

Today their house is all fixed up, and things have gotten back to normal, Martha Blair said.

Asked why she continues to volunteer as a foster parent, Blair said, "I like helping kids who have been hurt heal."

Barbara Dunn and Betsy Daly of Florence, speaking to a gathering of all the adopting families at the courthouse Friday, described catching the fostering bug.

With a grown biological son of their own, the couple said they had planned to "downsize" and move to Vermont, until one of Dunn's co-workers asked her and Daly to volunteer as foster parents.

Initially, Dunn and Daly said, they wanted to stick with fostering teenage boys. Their social worker, Susan Crane of the Department of Children and Families, convinced them to branch out. And to their surprise, the said, the unaccustomed matches have turned out to be more rewarding than they ever expected.

Last year they adopted 8-year-old Bobby, and just recently they started caring for a 4-month-old baby girl who was born prematurely and still requires medical care. Meanwhile, they're also fostering two boys, ages 12 and 13.

"Who knew after 20 years together we'd want to grow our family?" Daly said. "Apparently God did."

David and Patricia Ames of Orange were there Friday to adopt their third child, 2-year-old Charlotte. The biological parents of five grown children, the first child they adopted was their granddaughter Colleen, who is 11.

David Ames, who is the town manager in Athol, said they've been fostering children for about 12 years.

"Probably empty nest syndrome," Patricia Ames said with a laugh when asked why she and her husband volunteer.

"There's so many kids out there that have needs, and we can do our little bit," David Ames said.

James F. Lowe can be reached at jlowe@gazettenet.com.