The courts need to terminate their PR. By what you wrote I don't think you'd be able to get a court to do this with bio Dad. He sees his kids on a consistent visit. Is the visit supervised or do the kids go to his place for the weekend? If the Dad is smoking pot, the courts will most likely place him in a drug class and if he comes up clean for six months, they'll most likely give him the kids. Also in his favor is the steady job for the last year. The only thing you have right now on bio dad is the steady home you have given the kids, but you didn't say how old the kids are, so I'm not sure how many years they have been living with you.

Stay close to the bio Dad, and see if he would be a good parent. Work with him and girlfriend, make sure girlfriend is background checked, since she isn't blood but is a part of the kids lives during visit and maybe in the future as step mom.

After raising the kids and then Bio's ask for them back it's hard on you I'm sure. I have an older GD I have had guardianship of for 8 years. Her Bio mother has been saying for a year now that she is going to court to regain custody. Bio has completed drug classes, just got a job and looks like she might keep it this time and now she is looking into getting her own place. She could at anytime go to court and just might get her wish. Bio's have first call on kids no matter how long we have had them.
Good Luck!

Sadly, if you don't have children & family services involved and if dad is a regular visitor and won't voluntarily agree to allow you to adopt the kids, you probably won't be able to. Have you spoken to an attorney? In my particular case, I have been foster parenting my little guy for over 3 years. The state gave both bios case plans to follow in order to get their son back. At first, it felt like it would be a race to see who would get it together first because they were no longer a "couple" when I got my GS. Then it became more & more obvious as time went by that neither of them were going to be able to successfully finish their case plan. They had to finish drug treatment, which meant dropping clean whenever they were asked to test. They had to get and keep housing on their own (not living with other people) and had to have steady employment. Both continued using drugs, neither have housing of their own, neither have cars, mom has moved around with mutliple boyfriends and had mutliple arrests, dad has had more arrests and lives with someone who isn't really stable, so..............the courts finally terminated their rights. They gave them longer than some are given. Best of luck. If the bio dad is talking about wanting custody, sounds like you're going to have to get a good attorney anyway.
I think everyone's "process" is a bit different, too.

PS ~ if you KNOW he's smoking pot, you really shouldn't be letting him take the GKS for weekend visits. You could go to court and ask the judge for drug screenings to be given in order for him to continue having unsupervised visits. If anything happens to them while they are with him and it's learned that you knew he was smoking pot, it could fall back on you. Just a thought.

Have to agree with the other two ladies here. This is going to be a hard one. Sounds like dad just needs to complete some drug rehab in order to regain custody.

We have had custody of our gs for almost 8 years, had guardianship for 4. he was just under two when it happened. Both bio's rights were terminated, but bio dad appealed and they were reinstated.
Bio dad has had no contact of any kind since rights were reinstated and had a total of 3 phone calls, 2 visits which were court related. He lives in a faraway state.
We will be starting the adoption process in a couple of months. ( We have to save up some money). Of course bio dad's will have to be TPR'd again. Will keep you informed how it goes.

How long after his parental rights were terminated did he manage to get them reinstated and under what circumstances? I thought once rights were terminated, that was pretty much a closed case.

Parents have a right to appeal the TPR. Here in Indiana, they get a free public defender. (We had to pay for our attorney, not that I am bitter)
The states case for TPR was that bio dad had not had significant contact with our gs, that he was unwilling to relocate for reunification and had not completed his case plan.
By the time of the TPR trial, he had completed the case plan and 2 out of 3 appellate court judges did not feel that bio dad abandoned gs, but did the bare minimum to keep in contact.
"In sum, we find that although evidence of Seans lackluster efforts to communicate and visit with R.H., Seans refusal to relocate to Indiana, and R.H.s strong bond with his grandparents would be relevant to a determination of custody and/or guardianship, it is insufficient on its own to support the radical act of severing the parent-child relationship. We acknowledge that we are not permitted to reweigh the evidence or judge witness credibility, and we have not done so. Instead, we have accepted all of the trial courts findings and conclusionssave the ultimate conclusionas true, and have simply found that they do not support a decision to terminate Seans parental rights. We remand, therefore, and leave the trial court with the option of holding a hearing to determine issues of custody and guardianship"
So here we are 4 years later, no calls, letters, or support.

Meant to change names and initials.

Wow it gets complicated. We have guardianship so that's a start.

In MI we needed failure to have sufficient contact or support for two years. In 4 years we have never received support and she has shown lack of interest in parental rights. we did have an attempt at contact 2 yrs. ago but it was sporatic and inconsistent in spite of rules we set up. We have had full gurdianship with her rights suspended, but not terminated for 4 years. we have had 3 hearings, only one of which she appeared, made no statement as to wanting her son back nor desire to follow a reunification program. She lied on the stand about addresses, income and lifestyle, all which were verified as not accurate. She was allowed to seek council of her own accord and even he was not able to make contact with her after filing his appearance. The decision was made to terminate at that 3rd hearing. We will have a trial to terminate in August. She will have another 14 days to appeal the decision after that. The judge is making absolute surety that there are no grounds for appeal later. I might add that we started these proceedings in November 2011. It is a long and emotionally difficult task to terminate parental rights if there has never been a child protection case against them, as we took Gs before he was injured or abandoned in the city she was moving to. It will be at least another 2 months before the adoption is complete. But in comparison of a lifetime, 1 year is not so long. The cost is painful emotionally and financially. The father was not an issue. He has never been in his life except for a few weeks and he was not on the birth certificate. I simply had to testify that I believed with all sureity that he was most likely the father.

The fact that the children have been in your care since birth is in your favor. Its true that parental rights need to be terminated before adoption can occur. Look into de facto law in your state. I believe that goes through probate court and assumes you as parent because you have been primary caregiver. I would suggest you ask for mediator rather than attorney. Much cheaper and the courts will consider fathers rights. I think the best you can expect is you retain custody and he has liberal visitation. Acceptance of marijuana use is high today so don't think that w have bearing. Hope you can resolve this w minimal costs.