Hello!

We are Andrew, Brianna, Jessica and Adalynn and we love adoption! Our lives were first blessed by adoption in 2010 when our oldest daughter’s birth mom, Melinda, placed Jessica in our arms. We were again blessed in 2017 when Adalynn was born and her birth mom choose our family. Adoption is an incredibly brave choice and one we don't take lightly in our home. We love our daughters’ birth moms and are so grateful for them! Our family has grown because of adoption and we consider our daughters’ birth families a part of our family and love them! Having them in our family has been a blessing for all of us. We hope to have an open adoption again because we have seen how incredible it truly is!

We aren’t sure what emotions you may be feeling right now but thank you for considering adoption. We want you to know that whatever the details of your situation and whatever decision you make you have our love and support. We hope you have others around you who are helping and supporting you.

Our favorite way to get to know people is to spend time with them, because we firmly believe that to know someone is to love them. Ideally, we’d invite you over for a dinner of homemade pizza and sit down to talk or play a game, so you could get to know us better. Since that isn’t an option right now, we will do our best to help you get to know us here.

We were married in 2005, after dating for just a few months. Andrew proposed (over the phone…he’ll tell that story sometime if you want) and a few months later, we were married! We both feel so blessed to be happily married to our best friend. We’ve lived in Colorado, Nebraska, Alaska, and now live in Utah.

We love being a family and doing fun things together! We make it a priority to go on family vacations, whether it is a week-long trip to Seaside, Oregon or a weekend road trip. We love being outside whether we are sledding on the sled Andrew built or jumping on the trampoline in the backyard. The girls love when we have dance parties and they are fun: we turn out the lights, turn the music up, and hang our disco light ball from the ceiling.

Friday nights are family nights which either means playing games or watching a movie, eating popcorn (pop pop to Adalynn). Our overflowing game closet proves that we love games; our current favorites are Sequence, Life, Spot It, and Sardines. Jessica and Andrew like playing Monopoly too, but Brianna never joins in because of too many bad experiences with that game.

We love open adoption and when we do adopt again, we are hoping to have another open relationship. We are flexible and easygoing. We want you to be comfortable and we’re comfortable with visits, calls, texts, facetime, email and more. We think one of the most important things in any relationship is having good communication. We have seen this with our girls’ birth families and we know it will be important to have communication and openness with you as well. We promise to always be honest with you and keep the promises we make. We look forward to getting to know you and building a friendship.

That’s us in a nutshell! For more info on each of us, keep reading the posts below. How about you? We’d love to get to know you and find out some fun, random facts about you as well.

Andrew, Brianna, Jessica and Adalynn    

Andrew

Andrew is a great people person. He loves to make people laugh, get to know them, and is great at making others feel comfortable. Jessica asked on our last vacation, “Why does Dad talk to everyone?” He also likes working with tools, being outdoors, going fishing, and singing (he’s a baritone). He now works with generous individuals and families who donate to humanitarian aid and other programs. 

He’s a great dad and you can often find Adalynn up on his shoulders or Jessica trying to wrestle him. He and Jessica often do daddy-daughter dates together and have fun going out to eat, fishing, or getting donuts at Krispy Kreme. 

He grew up in Utah in a family of seven kids, where he was the middle child. We live near his parents and some of his family now, and they still have fun getting together for dinners and laughing about childhood memories. Random facts about Andrew: he has a webbed toe and a hitchhiker’s thumb.

Brianna

While Andrew likes to talk, an ideal day for Brianna would be curling up with a good book and some ice cream, and not leaving home. She still enjoys visiting and being social, but she also loves being at home and taking it easy. Some of her favorite things are making delicious food and trying out new recipes, growing a garden, and finding good deals. 

Brianna is an amazing mom and is able to stay at home with the girls and helps out at Jessica's school a bit too. She likes making crafts with Jessica, which often involve accessories for her dolls, reading books with both girls, and having dance parties, especially if they involve glow sticks. 

She grew up in Washington, and was the well adjusted middle child of nine kids. They grew up on a small farm, where they had fun playing and working hard, and where she learned to love animals and especially dogs. Random fact about Brianna: she went skydiving once, but it was a surprise for her, and not a good surprise. Never again!

Jessica

Jessica is a fun girl who loves to snuggle, read, do crafts, and play. She is now in third grade, and loves being with friends, but she is also ready to come home and play as soon as school is done. You can often find her with her nose stuck in a book...and sometimes it feels like her ears are in that book too because when she reads, she is in another world! Jessica loves to play games; Twister and The Game of Life are some of her favorites. 

She is a great big sister most of the time, and wants to teach Adalynn everything from colors to how to play the piano. Adalynn loves when she gets home from school for the day and runs up to her for a big hug when she gets back. 

We have an open adoption with Jessica's birth family and love to be able to stay in touch with them and visit them. We are blessed to have so many who love her and our family. 

Random fact about Jessica: she likes collecting all kinds of things and often has bags of these collections throughout the house. One time, she collected an extra set of car keys that we found months later, after we sold the car.

Adalynn

Adalynn is almost two and it amazes us how much she seems to learn each day. She loves animals, cars, babies, and books. She is a busy girl who doesn't like sitting still, in a shopping cart, stroller, or car seat. Even the high chair is getting tricky these days. If she had her way, she would run everywhere!

She likes to talk, although most words sound the same or are made up words for now. She loves to dance and pretend to sing. Her facial expressions are fun and we love watching her have fun.

Adalynn is mostly nice to Jessica, except for the occasional pinch and trying to learn how to share. She is good at giving hugs and wants to be just like her big sister. She is often a mama's girl, but she might pick our family dog, Lady, as her best friend.

Random fact about Adalynn: she hated baby food as a baby and when her doctor said to try giving her medicine in applesauce, we fed it to her in some chili instead. She loved it.