Buddy and Heather

>

<

From Us to You

>

<

Why We are Choosing to Adopt

Adoption is something we have talked about since before we were married. Heather has an adopted brother so it has always been something close to her heart.  We decided early on that we would pursue adoption whether or not we had biological children. It’s something that bonded us because we were both so open to it. We both have a strong desire to be parents and can’t think of a more unique way to experience that than through adoption. Heather’s brother Matt always knew he was adopted and that he had the option to find and meet his birth mother. He was happy to finally do this and to find out that he had several new brothers and sisters to meet as well. He now visits them regularly and they visit him too. We think that is so cool!

>

<

About Heather, by Buddy

Heather has a long history of caring for children.  At an early age, she began babysitting, demonstrating her understanding and ability to take on the responsibility of caring for children. She truly has an uncanny gift of showing patience when many others would be frustrated, this is because Heather knows how to connect and relate to kids in a manner that is very calming. She understands their need for play and expressing their own inner creativity, which is something Heather herself is very accomplished at. She also worked part-time for several years at a local elementary school in the pre-K class and as an aftercare aide. Her deep love of children has always been a part of who she is. Heather is incredibly creative and she has translated that into a career in styling and home design. She is an aesthetic influencer often collaborating with her friends on decorating their homes, and currently, she is obsessed with designing the nursery of her dreams.  She is driven by her passions: style, design, positivity, connection, and among all else her love of children and her desire to become a mother.

Heather’s Top 10

1. Buddy, enough said.
2. Our dogs, Minnie and Lily
3. Cooking. We started cooking a lot more at home during the pandemic, and never stopped! We love food and having healthy, delicious meals has become a huge part of our lives.
4. Traveling
5. Music. I love making playlists for myself and the people I love. I made the playlist for our wedding which Buddy and I both still listen to.
6. Gardening and indoor plants. I grow vegetables for salads every spring and summer.
7. Design: Clothing, art, home design, all of it!
8. Movie nights at home
9. Sunshine
10. Pickles and cheese, it’s a tie!

>

<

About Buddy, by Heather

Buddy is the most fitting nickname for my husband. His birth name is Aaron, but the story goes that when he was just days old, his Dad started to call him his little “Buddy” and it stuck. When you meet Buddy you truly will believe there is a reason for that. Buddy is the friendliest person you could hope to meet. He is the guy who will offer to pick you up from the airport or volunteer himself to help you with your home project. Buddy is thoughtful and giving and has a big heart. When he does something he always gives 100% and that’s why he will be a fantastic father. He has a big bright smile that radiates and a booming friendly voice you can hear down the block. Family is very important to Buddy, he is very close with his parents and his big sister. They talk every day, sometimes multiple times a day. It’s amazing to witness the strong family bond between them. His love of the outdoors is immense and I credit that to his father, who took him and his sister on camping trips across the United States every summer. Buddy now plans our road trips and camping adventures and he can’t wait to share those adventures with your child.

Buddy’s Top 10

1. Family – Family first. I love my family; my wife Heather, my parents, and my sister. I speak to my parents almost daily and with my sister two to three times a week. I love being connected and sharing our lives’ many ups and downs.
2. Cooking with Heather – We cook six out of seven dinners a week at home. It’s something we do well together and enjoy immensely. We usually get to chit chat and reconnect after a day apart while making, then enjoying, our meal.
3. Staying in touch with – My friendships are very important to me. I like to stay in touch with the people that have made an impact on my life.
4. Playing with our pugs – Minnie and Lily are both little sweethearts!
5. Backcountry snowboarding – My top hobby, by far! It has allowed me to explore the mountains and wilderness in the winter, with the added bonus of snowboarding.
6. Hiking and Backpacking – I love backpacking. Heather calls my hikes “death marches” because I like to hike 20 miles in a day. Sleeping outside under the stars reminds me of how simple life can be.
7. Surfing – I started surfing in high school. For ten years, I would go every weekend. We live further from the ocean now but try to surf occasionally.
8. Pretending to know how to work on cars – I know a lot about how cars work, instead of following sports as a kid I read about muscle cars. Theoretically, I could build a hot rod if I wanted to, big emphasis on IF 🙂
9. Going on long bike rides – I started riding in a bike marathon in high school. I don’t generally ride that long anymore, now I like to cruise around with our pugs in a trailer.
10. 70’s Ford pick-up trucks – My first car was a 1975 Ford F100. I loved that truck so much and still have dreams that I am driving it.

>

<

Lifestyle

We both work in the entertainment industry as Freelancers. This means between projects we have a fair amount of free time for fun. We cherish this free time and do our best to make the most out of it. When we have time off we often go camping or a road trip (or both). When we were dating, road trips became an essential part of seeing each other. We both had dogs and couldn’t always fly between Oregon and California, so we drove, A LOT. We drove to see each other and then once we lived together we drove to visit our families. It is something that we found out we both really love and something that we hope to keep doing all our lives. Traveling has been a big part of our relationship from day one. We have seen so many beautiful places in the United States as well as internationally. We spent our honeymoon in Jamaica with a group of close friends and visited the Bob Marley museum. Then went on to Grenada (just the two of us) and stayed at a cool hotel where we befriended the owner and Buddy swam with him in the bay every morning. It was gorgeous and the people were so friendly. We once took a road trip to Canada to visit two pugs we fostered and we also went on a weeklong trip to Iceland. We can’t wait to travel with your child and show them as many beautiful places as we can.

Heather is a freelance fashion stylist for advertising, which is a fun, creative job that she loves. In between her projects, she works on styling and staging homes. She has also spent years working as an aide at an elementary school on and off because she loves working with kids. For the first few years of your child’s life, Heather plans to be a stay-at-home mom and eventually ease back into her career when the time is right. The hope is that she can care for your child full time until they go to school and then integrate back into a good career and family balance.

Buddy is a construction coordinator in the film/tv union that builds film and tv sets. He also works as a project manager for a company that builds sets for live events. Often, Buddy is able to work from home and only travels when he has to oversee a project. Being freelance affords us a lot of freedom and will allow us to share equally in parenting. When Buddy is not on a project he will be doing Dad duty. We are both excited to become parents and we want to be as involved as we can.

If the break between our jobs is short, we enjoy taking long walks in our neighborhood with our dogs. There are so many parks in every direction, we often talk about how we can’t wait to take a child to explore and play in the parks nearby. In spring and autumn, we admire the beautiful trees as they start to bloom or lose their leaves. We talk about how fun it will be to raise a child in a place with changing seasons since we were both raised in warm sunny California where you didn’t see it much. We ride bikes to our friends’ houses in the summertime and we even bought a child seat attachment from our neighbors who know about our adoption journey and offered it to us for your future child.

One of our favorite things is cooking meals together and having friends over to our house for dinner. We both really enjoy cooking and we do it well as a team. At the start of every week, Heather makes a meal plan and does the grocery shopping. Most of the time, work permitting, we will cook dinner together. Good food is something that we love, and mealtime is a big bonding time for us. Growing up Buddy’s parents had a similar meal schedule and we hope to incorporate this into life with your child. We believe it helps give them a sense of structure and stability that is very important. Sometimes, if we are feeling tired from work or a bit lazy, we order tacos from our favorite taco spot nearby. Or maybe walk down to our favorite neighborhood pizza place for a yummy pie. Sharing our love of food and cooking with your child will make it that much more fulfilling and we are both looking forward to that. Other times, we just want to kick back and snuggle on the couch with the dogs and some popcorn. This quiet family time at home will be only that much more special with a new baby.

>

<

Our Pups, Minnie & Lily

We adopted our two pugs, Minnie and Lily, through a pug rescue. We are both BIG animal lovers.

Minnie is quiet and more reserved but overall more athletic. We think Lily has had a few litters of puppies. She has a bit of a waddle when she walks, but she gets around just fine! They both really love snuggling and laying on the couch with us watching movies. They come with us whenever we can bring them along so they love road trips and camping too. We are trying to get them into swimming, but for now, they just wear life jackets and sit on our paddleboards in the water. Pugs are great with children and these two would definitely make great companions for a child someday.

>

<

Home & Neighborhood

Our city is a great city for families. There are numerous parks, tons of bike trails, outdoor movies (kid-friendly of course), and concerts all summer long. We live near a school so there are often children playing outside, riding bikes and having fun. When we moved into our home Heather organized a block party, it was really fun for the families to meet and to get to know each other better. A close community is something that has always been important to us and we definitely feel like we have created that here. We are so excited to share it all with a child.

Our home is a 1920’s bungalow with lots of big windows which makes it light and bright and great for all of our plants. Heather absolutely loves plants and gardening which is a big reason we loved our home so much. Heather is super excited to show a child how to plant a garden in spring and watch it grow with them. Then they can harvest it together and eat the plants and cook with them. We have two big trees, one pine and one flowering Hawthorn that blooms beautiful (edible) white flowers every spring/summer. Minnie loves to snack on them. We hung a big hammock between the two big trees and we love to pile into it with the dogs and lounge or read. But truthfully, we got the extra-large hammock so we could someday share it with a child, that would be the best. We also live near a golf course with a walking trail that we often walk Minnie and Lily too. Sometimes we ride our bikes down to the golf course restaurant and have french fries and sit outside among the trees and relax and watch the golfers. There are lots of restaurants within walking distance from our home and we have a movie theater right across the street!

Heather’s design background and her passion for interior design have turned our house into a beautiful, warm, and welcoming home. When our friends visit, they tell us how much they love hanging out at our place because of how cozy and inviting it is. During the summers we sit out front on the porch swing, eating popsicles and chatting with the neighbors. Heather loves making homemade healthy fruit popsicles and the neighbors kids always come by asking for them. She can’t wait to make those popsicles for a child. In the winter we spend more time indoors snuggling with each other by the fireplace. Our house is old so it has a lot of character and a wood-burning fireplace which makes it super cozy in the cold months.

Heather is designing the nursery herself and it is inspired by our honeymoon in the Caribbean. We had an absolutely amazing experience. On a portion of the honeymoon in Jamaica, we rented a house and invited our close friends to join us. We absolutely loved the beaches, waterfalls, the crocodiles, and the people and vibe so much that she wanted to incorporate that feeling into the nursery.

>

<

Racial & Cultural Diversity

We both feel strongly that diversity is something to be celebrated. We have participated in several community marches and events and we donate regularly to the ACLU and SPLC. We also donate to support programs that help mothers of color and lift up minority communities. If your child is of a different race, we will do our best to show them a life that incorporates their heritage. We will learn and grow together as a family and educate ourselves as parents on how to be anti-racist and support equal rights for all. We hope that in these and in many other ways, we can be a good example for your child. We will be parents that are open-minded and unwaveringly supportive.

>

<

Our Families & Friends

Our parents both live in California. Heather has two older brothers, Brandon and Matt. Buddy has an older sister, Renata, whom he is very close to and who lives in North Carolina with her husband, Alec, and their sons, Ronen and Ozzie. The phone calls and facetime chats are frequent and we often try to plan to be in California to visit our parents at the same time so we can see each other. They are excited for us to start a family as well so the boys will have cousins to play with.

In Oregon, we are lucky to have a group of close friends that all have children and can’t wait for us to have a family as well. We plan group trips with them; a cabin in the mountains or camping trips in the summer. In summer we ride bikes to each other’s houses for BBQs and backyard games. When it’s cold out, we love to host dinners at our homes and sit around the fireplace afterward and talk or play board games. We can’t wait for the kids to be able to play together and for them to form these close friendships as well. It will mean the world to us to expand our community and share these moments with a child.

>

<

Family Traditions

A weekly tradition we have together is Pizza Fridays. We make deep-dish sourdough crust pizza at home. This will be so much fun to do with a child. Letting them pick out their favorite toppings for the pizza and putting them all on together. We think it’s important to have weekly traditions for your child to look forward to.

We celebrate both Christmas AND Hanukkah, which means even more holiday traditions and of course more presents! (Heather’s favorite) For Christmas every year we rent a potted Christmas tree. We love the idea that the tree will go on to live and grow long after we’ve enjoyed it for the holiday each year. We always have a fire in the fireplace on Christmas Eve and open one present each. On Christmas morning we open our stockings first and then our presents. With Heather’s family, we do a Secret Santa gift exchange for the adults and everyone buys gifts for the kids. We also have a tradition of ordering Chinese food for Christmas Day which is fun and delicious. For Hanukkah we facetime with Buddy’s parents every night for (8 nights) to light the candles and say the prayer. Each night of Hanukkah you open one present, after sunset. It is said, “When you can see three stars in the sky” you can begin. Heather always tries to cheat, but Buddy makes her point out three stars. We imagine a child pointing out those same stars and the joy of showing them these fun traditions and opening gifts with them.

Halloween is also a very important holiday to us because it’s the night we met. Every year we start thinking about our Halloween costumes early. We always do a couples costume & we usually have a Halloween party every year.  That is something we both did separately before we met so we wanted to continue it after we got married. It will be so much more fun for us to make our costumes into family costumes, we can’t wait to plan those ones! We go to a farm each year and pick out our pumpkins. The farm has a petting zoo, corn maze, games, caramel apples, and tons of yummy food. It will be so awesome to take a child there!

It feels really special to us that we have so many traditions already, and we want to add even more with your child!

>

<

What We Will Share

It is of the utmost importance to us that your child knows who you are. We hope to share as much about you with them as we can. If you have traditions that you would like to pass on to them, we would be honored to do so. We want them to know you and to feel connected to you and their birth culture throughout their life. We believe that it is crucial for a child to know where they came from to help them build a better understanding of who they are. We will always be there to support them and celebrate their roots.

>

<

Our Promise to You

We want you to know that you will always be a part of your child’s story. We plan to include you in their lives as much as you would like to be. We will always try our best and answer any questions they have for us as openly and honestly as possible. We want to show them how much they are loved and how special it is to be adopted. We are so thankful that you would consider offering us the privilege of raising your child as our own. Being able to become parents would mean the world to us and we promise to love your baby every moment of every day. We promise to love them unconditionally and to provide the most wonderful life for them we possibly can.