ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News: Though not a complete gathering, the Adams family pausing for a group photo includes from left: dad Ricky Sr., DeVante, 1, Ricky Jr., 21, Cormani, 9, Trevor, 2, Brady, 12, Adrianna, 4, Tyrone, 15, CeCe, 8, mom Mechele and Angel, 21. Absent are Cord, 19, and additional foster children in the household.Adoption Day began just after noon last Thursday with a party in the basement of the First Baptist Church.

More than 30 kids were about to be adopted, many of them by their foster parents. The room was set up for a party, with chips and sandwiches. A little girl in a gauzy pink dress chased a balloon across the floor.

Mechele and Ricky Adams were at either end of a long table surrounded by children. It was Adoption Day for the youngest, DeVante, a one-year-old with curly brown hair who sat in a booster seat. He wore a tiny sweater vest and rocked to the sound of holiday music. Mechele introduced me around the table.

There was Ricky Jr. 21, her only biological child; Angel, 21; Cord, 19; Tyrone, 15, Brady, 12, Cormani, 9, CeCe, 8, Adrianna, 4, Trevor, 2, and DeVante. There were also foster children, grandchildren and god-children buzzing around dressed in church clothes. Including step-kids, there are something like 21 children in the Adams' immediate orbit.

In a corner, I noticed a photo display of children looking to be adopted, accompanied by little essays. I skimmed through one by brothers David, 9, and Ricky, 8.

"I want my adoptive family to take me places to watch basketball, go swimming, go to see the ducks and have a Play Station," wrote Ricky. "I want them to know that I can run fast."

About 2,000 children are in state custody, most in foster care. Of those, 340 are looking for permanent homes.

Ricky Sr. works for the Anchorage School District as a custodian. Mechele used to have an administrative position at Providence Alaska Medical Center, but now she's a full-time parent.

It started 14 years ago, when Ricky Jr. came home and told her one of his friends at church, a foster child, needed help because his foster parents where going out of town. They decided to become "respite care providers," spelling full-time foster parents. In 2000, they became foster parents themselves.

"It's just in my blood," Mechele told me. Her mother raised her with seven of her cousins. "I think it's what I'm called to do."

The adoptions started with Angel and her brother, Tyrone. The Adamses were their foster parents for three years, and the siblings became available for adoption. By then, Angel was 16.

"I kept thinking, 'I don't want to adopt,' " Mechele said. " But then we thought, 'We can't just have them go anywhere else."

At the Adoption Day ceremony, Angel, in a pin-striped jacket and skirt, sat next to her mother, holding one of her toddler siblings. She's 21, but still celebrates her Adoption Day by going out to dinner, she said.

"It was surreal," she said. "I never thought we would be adopted."

Being a foster parent exposed Mechele and Ricky to bad things parents do to their children, she said. All of her adopted children deal with the effects of being exposed to alcohol or drugs in utero, she said. A few had nine substances in their blood at birth, she said. With some of them you can barely tell while others have serious problems with attention, impulse control, emotional expression. All have special needs because of the things they've been through, she told me. It can make you mad if you think about potential lost.

"I'm not here to judge," she said. "I let the anger motivate me to do everything I can to help the child rise above limitations."

A child can come to them so wounded or for such a short time it's hard to tell if she can give them anything, Adams said. But the kids usually surprise her. There was a toddler that had been shaken so hard the child wasn't expected to walk or communicate. The child was eventually adopted by a family in Louisiana. The adoptive mother called and asked if anyone sung to the baby. Mechele hadn't thought about it, but she's the choir director at church. Most of the day, she's singing something to herself.

"The baby was singing a little song," she said. "It was 'Oh, how I love Jesus.' "

I asked Mechele about the logistics of having so many children. They live in good-sized house in Turnagain. The secret, she said, is having a routine, and that means the children need a lot of supervision and direct contact. Her older children help a lot. They require their kids go with them to River in the Desert Community Church, where Ricky Sr. is a deacon. They do Bible study. During the week, after school, there is a strict policy about homework.

How does she feed that many? Sam's Club, she said. And Costco. She joked she could use a couple of cows to keep up with the appetite for milk. They eat four loaves of bread every two days.

"They eat cereal, and they eat cereal and they eat cereal," she said.

An hour or so after the ceremony, I met the family outside a courtroom in the Boney Courthouse. Little ones zig-zagged about. Ricky Sr., in an orange suit and silver tie, carried DeVante. The elevator doors opened, and out walked their pastor, the Rev. Leon May.

The little ones wrapped their arms around his legs. He slapped a couple handshakes with the older boys. And soon we all filed into the courtroom. Angel brought up the rear, carrying a pile of jackets. I looked at the kids sitting behind me in court. Brady, in a red-striped suit; Cormani, wearing a man-sized tie; CeCe, in a purple plastic tiara; Adrianna, in a red plaid dress and matching beret. Their feet swung under the wooden bench.

The Adamses took a seat in front of judge Suzanne Cole. A lawyer asked them if they could provide for their new child, and if they thought it was in their family's best interest to adopt him.

Cole scanned the faces in the gallery.

"How do you do it?" she asked.

And she said she couldn't think of a reason why the adoption shouldn't go forward. She asked all the siblings to come to her desk, where she let them hammer the gavel and gave each a gift to celebrate the day. The pastor took pictures on his cell phone. And, in his new father's arms, DeVante blinked his heavy eyes and let his head nod, drifting off to sleep.