Traditions in our family center around Holidays. We spend Christmas with both sides of our family. Andrew's family goes to the Poconos the week of Christmas. We spend the time playing games and watching old movies, hiking on the many trails, and lots of sledding. As we add more children to our family, we are sure even more fun traditions will be added. Heather's family likes to do a Secret Santa and have a fun tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve.

Thanksgiving is when we like to get together with our large extended families. Every even year we do Heather's family, which is getting more and more fun as there are more kids being born. And every odd year we do Andrew's family. His mother makes the best stuffing!

One tradition Heather loved as a kid was Sunday dinners at her grandparents' house with all of her cousins. Her grandparents had a large swimming pool and everyone would jump in. This inspired us to get our own swimming pool. It will be ready for Summer 2022 and we plan to have so many pool parties. We want this to be a new yearly tradition.

We are lucky in that we bring out the best in each other. Andrew helps Heather to slow down and make thoughtful and logical decisions when she wants to rush right in due to excitement. And Heather helps Andrew to take big steps forward when he is scared or hesitant. Heather is great at making new friends while Andrew is good at keeping long relationships.

One thing Heather really admires about Andrew is that he has had the same best friends since middle school. Andrew is loving, loyal, and intelligent. He is slow to judge and open-minded. Andrew would do anything for Heather, their dog CeCe, and their future children.

Andrew thinks Heather is a loving person who has learned to embrace his friends and family. Heather has the ability to create wonderful crafts from painting, to knitting and embroidery. Heather has been able to continue to grow and learn new skills throughout our relationship and has inspired Andrew to continue to learn and grow and push forward even when things get tough.

Pets play a very important role in our lives. Heather grew up with a family dog and when she moved out of her parents' house, got her own. CeCe is a 10 year old Labradoodle and is the life of the party. She knows exactly how to get belly rubs out of everyone she meets. And you can't hold her back once she hears the word walk. CeCe had lived with Heather for 4 years before she met Andrew, but as soon as CeCe set her eyes on him, it was immediate love. For both of them. Andrew had always wanted a dog.

We consider CeCe a member of our family and couldn't imagine life without her. CeCe, as like all dogs, was an instant best friend to both Heather and Andrew. She is always available to provide love, fun, cuddles, and comfort. She knows just how to make everything feel all right.

Dogs are also an important part of Heather's extended family. Her parents and her sister have dogs. Every house our future children will visit will have an instant best friend for them to play with.

When we were house shopping, we specifically looked for one that we could grow into. And we found the perfect one. We have a four bedroom house that we can't wait to fill with kids. There is a comfy living room for watching TV and cuddling on the couch. And a huge basement for games and sleepovers. One great feature is that the living room and kitchen are open concept. One person can be cooking dinner but still be involved in the conversations happening on the couch. We also just got a new pool! We have so many plans for pool parties with all of our friends and family. There will be lots of food, yard games, and tons of fun.

We have many neighborhoods surrounding ours with lots of young, diverse families. There is an elementary school with its own playground less than 5 minutes from our house. There will be so many friends for our kid as they are growing up. They could meet at the local parks to play on the swing set, ride bikes, or even play soccer or basketball.

We live about half an hour away from both of our parents, and Heather's sister family. We see Heather's family about every other week. Most of our time is devoted to playing with our young nephew. But we also love to have dinner together and play a board game, like Code Names or Sushi Go Party, or have a Harry Potter movie marathon.

We get together with Andrew's family about once a month. We typically like to gather around a meal and just talk about what's going on in our lives, and enjoy showering our niece Alexandria with love. When we gather at Andrew's sister's house, we can also count on The Office to be on in the background making us laugh.

Around Christmas time, we like to celebrate in the Pocono's with Andrew's family. His parents own a timeshare there since before they were married. Andrew has many loving memories of spending the holiday with his family in the snowy mountains. And because Andrew's parents love to hike, we can already imagine how much our future children will love spending time on the trails with their grandparents.

Everyone is so excited for us to add a child to our family. Our siblings can't wait to have a cousin for their children. And our parents are already planning ways to spoil their new grandchild. Thankfully with so many babies in the family already, we already have the nursery stocked!

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for taking the time to read our family profile. We are honored. Though we can't truly understand how difficult this time is for you, we know that everything you are doing is done with love for your child. Our hearts and prayers go out to you as you make this decision.

We have been married for four years, after meeting online through a dating website. We really bonded over our shared interests and beliefs. Reading though each other's profile, we recognized that we had similar Christian upbringings. Our marriage has been a big blessing to each of our lives. But we have also know that our family will not be complete without children. When we discovered that we wouldn't be able to have children biologically, we never thought that we had reached the end of our journey. We knew that adoption was the right choice to grow our family. We are so excited for the opportunity to grow our family through children but also our children's birth family.

Adoption will always be the center of our child's birth story and we understand how big of a part you play in that. Our child will know they are adopted from the first day we bring them home. We want to share their birth story with them through letters and photos of their birth family. And we are open to sharing letters, e-mails, phone calls, video calls, and pictures with you. And when the timing is right, in person visits. We understand how important these mementos and memories will be on special occasions, especially if we cannot all be together. We also plan to create a photo sharing account through Tiny Beans so that you are a part of your child's everyday life.

We have so much love for you and your child and cannot wait to share it. We each grew up in close-knit and loving families and want the same thing for our child. We have wonderful nieces and nephews who we love to play with, who live near by. We know family holidays together will have the joys of children playing and laughing and we are excited to share that with our child. We look forward to creating new traditions that our child, nieces and nephews can pass on to future generations.

We want each day to be marked by how many laughs, hugs, and kisses are shared among our family. We want our child to never doubt the love we, and our extended family, has for them. We also value teaching our child to love and respect others. We want to give our child the most out of life through traveling, education, and encouraging rich, sustaining, and healthy friendships. We are looking forward to expanding our family.

We are grateful that you are considering us as potential parents for your child. We are praying for you as you make this decision. Please know that you have our respect no matter what you decide is best for your family.

Sincerely,

Andrew & Heather