SALEM - It was a day of contrasts yesterday at Salem Juvenile Court. Outside, it was gray and rainy, while inside it was all bright colors and smiles as 18 children were placed with families as part of Essex County's fourth annual celebration of National Adoption Day.

Twenty-month-old Jiska de la Cruz was a portrait in pink as she stood in a pink dress with matching bows in her hair waiting in Courtroom No. 2 for the legal ceremony to start. She was being adopted by her grandparents, Modestina and German de la Cruz of Salem.

When Judge Michael Edgerton entered the courtroom, he glanced at the pink and green balloons that flanked his big desk. "I'm not used to having balloons" in my courtroom, he said with a grin.

After the brief ceremony, the delighted grandparents were congratulated by adoption workers and friends.

"I'm feeling so proud," said Modestina de la Cruz, 51, who is adopting a grandchild after raising seven children of her own. "I'm feeling so good."

Michael and Aldana Lane, another North Shore couple, were in court yesterday to adopt Tylor, 6, a boy they have had in foster care since he was 2. The Lanes have two biological children and, with Tylor, three they have adopted from foster care.

"You can't help but fall in love with them," Aldana Lane said.

There are 10,000 children in foster care in Massachusetts, including 600 waiting for families.

"The good news," Edgerton said yesterday, "is today more than 200 children will be adopted" across the state.