This beautifully blended family made it official after a father took the decision to adopt all six of his wife’s children.
Tony Thomas married mother of six, Lexy and four years later he adopted her six children.
Tony has a daughter of his own, Alexis, from a previous relationship, and then went on to have two children with Lexy – forming their perfect family of eleven.
The couple first met on a Christian dating site, a few years after Lexy separated from her first husband and her children’s biological father.
Tony flew out to see the stay-at-home mum at her home in Kentucky, USA, which she shared with her sons – Elijah, Isaiah, Ethan, Sheldon, Simeon and Iridius.
In 2018 the pair married and four years later the adoption paperwork was finalised.
Lexy said: “I was married previously to my boys’ biological father, which unfortunately ended, but he’s no longer in their life and hasn’t seen them since they were younger.”
“Within the first month of being on a dating site, called Christian Mingle, I saw Tony and reached out to him.
“I introduced him to my children as Mr Thomas and they called him that for the longest time up until we got married. But that was so crazy.”
She added: “I had prayed for all the great characteristics in a man that I see in Tony.
“The boys all have the surname Thomas, and Tony is on all the kids’ birth certificates as their father.
“One of the boys even changed his first, middle and last name when he was adopted.”
Lexy was granted full custody of her children and flew them all out to meet Tony and they never went back.
She added: “The judge said that it’s been one in two cases where she has ever permitted the biological parent to move to another state from the other biological parent.”
Lexy refers to them as a ‘blended family’ and prides their dynamic as never being ‘his’ kids or ‘her’ kids.
Tony said: “The fact that I was on Christian Mingle was a direct response to a prayer as I had been praying over the qualities that I want in a woman, and I heard God tell me to get on Christian Mingle.
“It’s so funny, you know I’m a Black city boy from Fort Lauderdale and I fell in love with a white country girl from the small town in Kentucky and now we’re happily married in Florida.
“We see us living in Florida as a blessing because initially, there was no way for her to move or relocate. But we really felt like God was telling us that we would live in Florida, and we just had to have faith.
“So, we got married, put a contract on a house, took all these steps for everyone to be there.”
Tony said: “She had more kids than I had ever considered that I wanted. But I prayed for a boy, and she had six of them.”
Lexy and Tony had two more kids of their own, daughters named Autumn and Lexton.
He added: “Everything just miraculously happened, and we could have a whole hour-long session of the blessings that God has had in our lives, and I am just so grateful!”
This family’s dreams really did come true!