Continuing to Grow Our Family

Dear Birthfamily,

We are very excited about continuing to grow our family through adoption, and can't wait to welcome another child into our home. We hope that the thoughts and photos that follow will help you get a feel for who we are so that you can decide if you would like to begin a relationship with us. We know that you love your baby and are trying to decide what is best for her. Thank you for reading our letter.

Because we are not able to have biological children, all of our children will know that adoption is the natural way to join our family. we talk to our children in age appropriate terms about their adoption stories and we pray for their birthfamilies by each person's name every evening during our bedtime routine with the boys.

Meet Mark and Heather

We attended college near the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and we met the first week of Heather’s freshman year in 1990. We spent time with friends eating together in the dining hall, playing games at the student center, sitting together in chapel. We began dating because of how much fun we had with each other. Around town we enjoyed going to arcades, the dollar movies, putt-putt mini golf, walking the trails at local parks, stopping at Krispy Kreme when the “HOT” sign was lit and treating ourselves to Papa John’s pizza instead of the cafeteria food. We enjoyed day trips to historical sites like Appomattox Courthouse, and visiting Washington DC and seeing the national monuments, the Smithsonian museums and National Zoo. We dated all through college, got engaged shortly after graduation, and were married in April of 1995. To us, marriage is a sacred promise before God, our families and friends, as well as a lifetime commitment of supporting and loving one another as we raise our family together.

About Mark (by Heather): Mark is a loving husband and a very involved father. He chooses to spend his free time with the family instead of pursuing more individualized hobbies. The boys love to play with him because he is very entertaining. When he leaves for work they each hug and kiss him and tell him “I won’t forget you daddy!” When he gets home from work they run to him shouting “Daddy, Daddy.” Every night when Mark and I go to bed, he leads us in prayer for our children, our extended families and anything that is on our hearts. I am so glad that God has provided just the husband I need – a gentle and caring leader.

About Heather (by Mark): Heather is a stay-at-home mom which allows her the flexibility to get the kids to their activities whether its taking Kristen to volleyball practice or taking the boys to playgroup. One of the boys’ favorite things is to sit in her lap to read books or watch a video and she loves the cuddle time! She is a great cheerleader at Kristen’s games or when the boys are trying to learn a new skill. Heather is detail oriented & makes sure that our home runs smoothly which is a great compliment to my big picture outlook. I am so thankful that she is committed to being a caring wife and stay at home mom.

Our Family

We believe that God has brought us together as a unique and special family created through adoption. Our oldest son, Joseph, born in June 2006, came to us first as our foster son. He was five months old at placement and 28 months at adoption. Fostering was a long and emotional road for us, but we are so thrilled and blessed to have him in our family. He is a sensitive, confident, active boy who loves swimming, playing in the bath tub and going to the playground. His favorite shows are The Backyardigans, Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go! His favorite things to eat are pizza and chocolate pudding. He loves playing with other children and when its time to leave he says “I miss my friends.”

We were drawn to the beautiful Hispanic culture, so for our second child we choose to adopt from Guatemala. We received photos of Samuel every few months until we brought him home at seven and a half months old. He is a quiet and observant child who loves music, reading books and copying his big brother. Since he was developmentally delayed, having a big brother around as an example has been a big help and Samuel is now caught up developmentally. His favorite videos are the Barney shows and Baby Einstein’s Baby Doolittle. His favorite foods are applesauce and rice dishes. We enjoyed our time in Guatemala while picking up Samuel and when he is a few years older we plan to go back to visit his birth family, which includes his mother and three siblings.

In January of 2009 our niece, Kristen, joined our family. She is 17 years old and plans to stay with us at least until she goes off to college. She is a vibrant addition to our household who keeps us laughing and laughing and laughing some more. When she was gone this summer for camp and then a missions trip, the boys kept saying that they missed her and asked when she would be back home and if she would stay home for a long time! Kristen is a social butterfly who is captain of her varsity volleyball team, enjoys playing varsity basketball, singing in the high school worship team at church, working at a nearby grocery store as a cashier and filling every spare moment of the day with socializing/texting (just like every 17 year old girl does). She plans to study broadcast journalism in college.

More About Our Daily Lives

We enjoy a good relationship with our parents and our boys enjoy spending time with their grandparents every couple of months. They are also getting to know their aunts, uncles and cousins. We love spending time with our families and we talk on the phone with them often in-between visits. We consider our children’s birth families to be our family as well and we refer to them as our boy’s brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. We refer to their birthmothers as Momma Dorothy and Momma Maria.

We enjoy a fully open adoption with Joe’s birth family which includes phone calls and visits when possible. We have known his birth family for many years, even before placement and they personally chose us to foster their son. His sisters stayed with us for a week the summer of 2008 and over the 4th of July weekend the summer of 2009! We have always had photos up of Joe’s birth family in his room. We have recently been able to make contact with Samuel’s birth family through a missionary working in Guatemala. We have made contact with them twice and sent lots of photos showing him from placement until now. We are so happy that we now have photos of them to put up in Sam’s room. We look forward to one day meeting them in person.

Our family life includes our mini Poodle mix, Andy, who we adopted from a rescue group in January 2005. We took him to basic obedience class right away and he is fully trained and loves kids of all ages. He loves going for walks, cuddling up in your lap for a nap, and playing fetch in the back yard - he even brings the toy back! “Andy” was one of the first words that the boys learned to say and sometimes when we are out running errands Joe says “We need to get back home to play with Andy.”

We live in a lovely, spacious home in a new family-friendly subdivision with lots of other young children. Our community enjoys a mix of ethnic diversity of middle income families and has two neighborhood swimming pools, a playground, tennis courts, a clubhouse, walking trails and more. This provides opportunities to get to know our friendly neighbors and for the kids to have lots of friends and playmates. Mark works as an insurance agent for a well known company and Heather does some part time child care at church so this is another opportunity for the boys to play with other kids.

We are a Christian family and desire to show our children through example how to love God and serve others. Our church family is an important part of our lives and we know many other adoptive families through our church. We attend regularly as a family and have some developed some very close friendships with other families from church.

We enjoy living in a city with many kid-friendly activities and attractions. We enjoy going to the library, walking on trails and attending local fairs, parades, festivals and church activities all year round. It seems that there is always something going on. Labor Day weekend we attended a local Festival featuring food, fair rides and live music including a Latin band. The kids love going to “Monkey Joes” indoor inflatable playground, going to the park and riding their trikes up and down the sidewalk. Outdoor activities are available almost year round since we have pretty moderate weather. Once or twice per winter we get a little snow, and that makes for some really exciting times. The boys can’t wait to play in the snow, and they even hope it will snow in the summer.

I hope we have given you enough information to help you determine if you’d like to find out more about us and not too much information to be overwhelming. We’d love to answer any other questions you might have about us and to find out a little about you. Thanks for reading our letter to you.