Welcome to the board! I'm also a single parent, although i never had much luck getting matched with a "straight adopt" situation, therefore i became a foster parent and was able to adopt three kids that way.
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I want to join the community here because you all seem much more positive than my local adoption support group or the other adoption support groups I've found online. I am honestly tired of people predicting worst-case scenarios based solely on the twins' age. I'm not naive and turned down earlier matches because I believed the children were beyond my (and perhaps anyone's) ability to help. Obviously I believe Casey and Devin are different.
I wanted to comment on this although I'm not quite sure I can put what i want to say in a way that won't come off as "negative." Before I adopted a child, I was positive and enthusiastic, and really thought i knew about all the issues i could face. There were children whose child assessments i read that i knew i couldnt parent, kids with big issues. I knew my limits. I thought i knew a "red flag" when i saw it. I knew all about honeymoon periods and providing structure and all that. I read all the good adoption books by authors like Gray and Keck and Hughes. I read Love and Logic front and back and thought i had a handle on creative ways to discipline a new kid. I dismissed any warnings about birth order or older kids or any of that. Those angry adoptive parents! They obviously just werent prepared! or maybe their kids were extreme, and surely i'd be able to screen out kids like THAT.
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Then my daughter moved in.
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She is the bio sister of the boy i had as a foster child and was adopting, and once TPR went through the plan was for me to adopt them both. She was 7 when i met her, 8 when she moved in, now almost 10 years old. I saw her every week during bio parent visits for about 8 months or longer. She spent ten whole days with me over spring break and then every weekend for a couple months until school got out. Sure i saw "behaviors" but i used my trusty Love and Logic stuff and what i learned in Parenting the Hurt Child and felt i really knew what i was doing. Her only diagnosis was ADHD. But then she moved in. And i saw the lying, the irritating behaviors, the manipulation, the 1/2 hour long screaming tantrums, the weird food issues. Oh, and she was so nice to the younger boys (who were 2 when she moved in) during visits, but after she moved in i could not go to the bathroom without her instigating something with one of them (the one not bio related to her, so in her eyes not her "real brother")...he actually started biting after she came because she would get in his face, tease him, snatch toys, exclude him from play with her and the other brother. It was awful. I felt this intense Mama Bear reaction to protect my vulnerable child against this big kid who could be so sneaky and mean. We had a couple instances of inappropriate sexual stuff with a kid we knew (just "flashing" of private parts but it made me nervous) so for months i had to watch her closely around kids her age (which is easier said than done!) She begged, constantly. She lied about everything.
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NONE of this was disclosed in paperwork. Clearly she has some level of attachment disorder (and i also suspect possible fetal alcohol issues) but nowhere is that even suggested. It was only after i got her true history from someone involved in her case (but not with my agency) that laid out the whole case from the beginning did i get a sense of the neglect she may have suffered (emotional neglect, living from home to home) but not even the prior foster parent told me the real deal. I thought that foster parent seemed a little crazy, mean, too hard on my daughter, overly negative. (BIG red flags for a kid with big issues, if the caregiver seems to be the one with the problem, but i didnt "see" it at the time!) The months from when she moved in until she was properly medicated was h.e.l.l! (and this is a kid that *doesnt* hurt animals or people, smear feces, get violent, hoard food, set fires, etc....i never realized a child could IRRITATE you into near-insanity!) It was SO awful, that even though many of her behaviors are reduced or no longer an issue I feel so traumatized by the first six months that i never want to go back to that and its changed the way i parent her. I'm a worse parent when she's here, not just to her but to the little boys too. I now understand why people disrupt adoptions, whereas before i couldnt imagine how someone could be so "heartless" 
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So yeah, now i'm that mom on an email list, when someone talks glowingly about the child they were just matched with, who tries to provide a bit of a heads up. Not too long ago a parent got really offended by people pointing out the red flags, we just didnt understand, HER child would be different. She even came back to the list later to say "see, he's moved in now and he IS wonderful! Not at all what you warned about!" but it turns out the child had lived with her for like a week or something. You can't tell in a week. or a month. Maybe six months. Maybe a year. The social workers, teachers, neighbors who know my daughter think she is sweet, and wonderful, and friendly and adorable. She can be. But really they have no idea. And now *I* am the mean mom who seems so angry and negative with my "sweet" child. I guess i just want to give you a framework for WHY people might be so negative with you. Because you can claim your kids "arent like that" all you want, but you wont know....until you know. And by that time, you're in it and there isnt much to be done but manage it. And i know when i've been on lists and someone who HASNT "been there" or even adopted yet tries to tell people who HAVE that it wont be like that, my kid is different, you're too negative...well it just seems alot like yeah we remember having those happy glasses on. We used to be there too. And now we're....not there. Some people have had their families nearly destroyed by a "bad match" and its hard to fault them for putting out a warning to others.
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So....that was not the positive stuff you're probably looking for. But its my life. I dont post too much about what we go through, because frankly the best support i get in parenting my daughter is another mother parenting a daughter who is just the same. I can tell her about my worst parenting moments and know i wont be judged because she's been there too. And because i know she is a sane parent and a good mother, it confirms for me that i am too, and that its not ME, its the child's issues.
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You're boys sound like they will be a lot of fun, and i do hope that you wont run into too many major issues. But if you DO, please feel free to come here and be negative and vent.
I read your post this afternoon and immediately went and asked the boys what they believed. Luckily their beliefs are vague, since my tradition is to do all the Pagan holidays with one group of friends and all the Christian holidays with another group of friends.
