Zachary and Stephanie

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From Us to You

Dear Expecting Mother,

Stop. Breathe. Then go. That is what we tell our children and each other each morning on our way out of the door. The three simple statements are just a reminder that, with a slow inhale and exhale, everything will be alright.

We have three young children. Our number one goal as parents is to raise kind humans. That’s it. In a world full of chaos, we find time for family dinners each night, walks through the neighborhood and baking cookies together – with a few shakes of emotions and tantrums along the way. We’re not perfect, but we’ll love your child with everything we have. We’ll welcome them into our home, be there for them and they’ll have the support of family. Our children have been asking us almost every day when their baby brother or sister will be coming, and we just pray that we all will get to meet you soon. We’re here, waiting, for as long as it takes. We’re excited to open our lives up to you and welcome your child into this family.

We promise to do our best. We know that the love for your child runs deep, and we promise that we will provide your child with love, security and every opportunity possible to live the life they love.

Please know that your consideration of our family is humbling and we’re just so excited to meet you.

Love,
Zach & Steph

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About Us

We met in 2010 and were married in 2012. We knew rather quickly we were a good fit for each other. Zach naturally has a very outgoing personality, while Stephanie is a little more reserved. We take time every night after the kids are asleep to talk about our day and make plans for the next. We do our best to be as honest and open with our children, enjoy traveling together and as a family, and together really like spending time outside. We are a perfect complement to each other as a couple, which in turn, makes us a pretty darn good team and parents as well.

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Why We Are Choosing to Adopt

This is the thing we keep coming back to most as parents. Our home is full of laughter, loud noises, and just waiting for our chance to welcome another child into it. Your child will be a blessing to this world, and will be to our family. We will shower him/her with love.

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Our Relationship with You

Our relationship with you is important to our family. You will be part of our family, and continue to be part of your child’s world. We promise to share information about milestones. We are incredibly grateful for the gift and willingness to trust us to raise your child and we will love you and cultivate a caring relationship, because it’s important – and we know that. We are generous people that will treat your child as our own, welcome them into our family with open arms and promise to raise them to be kind, caring and strong.

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About Stephanie, by Zach

Stephanie is the best mother and wife. Her patience is something to be admired and her love for our children is second to none. She works hard at her job, but being a mom is her top priority. She is a great listener, she’s tender, patient, and literally gets down on the ground to play with our children every chance she has.  She is always coming up with ideas on how to make our lives more fun, exciting, and filled with laughter.  I’m so glad I found the greatest mother and wife on the planet and we are definitely raising some pretty awesome kids!

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About Zach, by Stephanie

Zach is the most dedicated father I could have ever hoped for. As a teacher, he is always teaching our children life lessons.  Zach’s patience radiates when he’s able to teach our children something new, even the simplest tasks, Zach gets the kids excited about learning to wash their hair, wiping up crumbs off the countertop, or even turning off the shower.  When I ask them “How did you know how to do that?” they proudly respond “Daddy taught me”. Moms and dads in our community are often pulling me aside to tell me how much of a positive influence he has been on their child as a teacher. Helping their child find self-confidence and excelling in a subject they never realized they even liked, or even teaching them a life-task of how to tie a tie (both the girls and the boys!). As a lifelong learner, Zach is always reading books, articles, or listening to podcasts about becoming a better father, husband, and person. Talking to our children about mistakes and why they are necessary for growth and understanding the world around us is something he finds essential.

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Home & Neighborhood

Our home is located in a small valley near a quaint river in Iowa. The beautiful and scenic bluffs make many tourists question whether they’re in Iowa or Colorado! Our family enjoys going for walks in every “Iowa” season. Our property sits adjacent to a popular campground and has every feeling that a state park typically has. The weekend travelers create entertainment during the warmer months but leave the beautiful scenery all to us during the remainder of the year.

We cannot wait to explore the outside with your child, invite friends and family over to have campfires, smores, and run through the sprinkler. Quiet roads, neighborhood pets roaming around from yard to yard, and everyone mowing their lawns on Sundays. When spring rolls around, we get excited about planting the garden – which seems to get bigger and bigger each year.

Our home is a large home, with plenty of space to spread out, yet feel like we’re all piled on top of each other, sleeping in the same room (because, well, it happens). Our two girls share a room with bunk beds, yet both of them fall asleep in the same bed. Our son’s room is located just off of our bedroom, which is also the nursery. We have another bedroom in the loft, which overlooks the living room and sunroom area – looking out to the bluffs, river, and scenic views.

Your child will be a part of this. All of it. Your child will be able to play in the large backyard, learn to ride a bike, enjoy the outdoors, and explore God’s creations, with us.

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Lifestyle

Being a part of the community is important for our family. Zach is a teacher and Stephanie works in economic development. Giving back to the community is important. We work hard to instill the values of community into our children as well. We enjoy spending time outdoors, riding around in our 4-wheeler with our kiddos and dogs, gardening, and exploring the rivers and lakes. We do everything as a family. We moved home to our small hometown to be closer to family, so including our extended family – grandparents, cousins, uncles, and aunts is easy!

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Our Family

Family is paramount when you have a large family. Moving back to our hometowns has afforded us the luxury of spending a lot of quality time with family and friends we hold dear to our hearts.

• Wally is our oldest child, age 7, and is in the first grade. His favorite subject is math. He is an energetic, empathetic, and talented kid. He enjoys running, riding his bike, and eating.
• Marcella is our middle child, age 5, and will be starting kindergarten soon. She enjoys playing dress-up, princesses, princesses, and mostly princesses. She loves helping people, whether it’s with daily household chores, cleaning up the kitchen, or baking. She enjoys spending time with her family and learning at school. She loves coloring too!
• Piper is our youngest, age 3, and currently attends a three-year-old preschool program. She loves being active, entertaining herself, baking, and trying new foods. She also enjoys a good puzzle and has a tendency to do one over and over until she can get it right – all by herself. When Piper was 2, each morning she would get dressed and sit at the front door as we were all getting ready, just practicing putting her shoes on so she could do it by herself.

Stephanie’s parents are still married and live about 5 minutes away. They enjoy hosting dinners, dining outdoors, playing games, and entertaining family during holidays. Zach’s parents are both living in town as well. Zach’s mother frequently visits our home, helps with occasional “date night” outings, and overall just enjoys spending time with us. Zach’s father and stepmother visit often and frequently bring treats or presents.

Stephanie’s siblings (brother and sister) are also in the community. Working, raising four children with another two dogs. Zach’s older brother lives minutes away from our home, has five children and we spend a lot of time together eating meals, going to sports games, and just playing backyard sports and activities together.

We host a large annual gathering each year on the Fourth of July. We grill and make food, play games in the backyard, and watch the campground’s professional firework show.

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Why Diversity is Important to Us

As a couple, we have explored our hearts and keep coming back to bringing diversity into our family and community. Enrichening our family’s nucleus, while honoring what makes all of us different, is something we look forward to celebrating. Thus, our openness to children whose backgrounds may be different than our own. We look forward to exploring this further with you when we have the chance to meet!  Since we met in 2010, we’ve lived in a few different cities. What brought us back “home” is the small-town friendliness of our community and its progressive nature. The community welcomes diversity and that’s what excited us about moving back in 2015. We have a great network of diverse families, including those with adopted minority children.

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Family Traditions

We have many family traditions that we have begun to cultivate as a family with young children. We eat dinner together as many nights as we can – taking turns setting the table, bringing the food over, and cleaning up. Our nightly routines are sacred – reading books, sharing stories, and the one “happy thing” and “sad thing” that might have happened that day. We say Grace at every dinner – holding hands (washed or sticky, you never really know).

Holidays have also brought on their own traditions. Christmas has always been an exciting time in our home. The children wake up early Christmas morning from the excitement of Santa visiting. All of us, sleepy faced still, wander out to the living room where the tree sits and the warm fireplace is recovering from the day before. Gifts piled high, special notes for each child and fresh coffee brewing for the parents. The cookies and milk are gone – Santa gets hungry delivering gifts all night. Even the dogs get treats/gifts. We open gifts, enjoy our morning, play with toys and try on clothes. We then pack up a few things and head to Stephanie’s parents’ home to spend the day with siblings, grandparents, and cousins – eating way too much, watching football, opening gifts, and eating lots of desserts. The warm fireplace heats the home, the dogs sleeping on the couch and the tree lit up in the living room. Stephanie’s dad cuts the ham, and her mother makes a strawberry pretzel salad that is always the most popular food in the spread.

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Vacations

Like most Iowan’s, we love Wisconsin. 🙂 We vacation there each year with Stephanie’s family – siblings, grandparents and lots of little cousins. Last year, we were able to spend some time getting pulled on the big tube behind the boat, wading in the sandy water, splashing around with the kids, and enjoyed taking walks through the woods. The kids love Papa’s boat! We were able to explore some of the trails nearby as well, and followed some small animal tracks in the mud!

We took a day trip to an outdoor waterpark, where we stayed the night at our rental property, camping out in the living room with a movie and popcorn. We are blessed to be able to visit the property 6-7 times a year, enjoy the indoor waterpark and just spend uninterrupted time with each other. We take walks around the resort’s neighborhood and enjoy the sight of the beautiful cabins and sights while eating ice cream.

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What We Will Teach Our Children

This is a loaded question, as one of us is a teacher. The short answer is – everything. The practical answer is that we hope for our children to learn how to become good learners. The world is vast and the information we have at our fingertips anymore is instant and, often, confusing. Teaching them how to navigate all of the news, social media, and educational tools of the world will be essential to their long-term success. On a deeper level, we want to raise kids of integrity, humbleness, confidence, passion, and honesty. Respect is key. Everything pivots around and can be groomed under that one value.

We are both working parents, but our relationship with our daycare provider is awesome. Stephanie is actually the board president of the child care center and is actively involved with building and expanding the new facility. Additionally, we have decided that our children will be attending the local (small) parochial (private/Catholic) school through the second grade, so that’s exciting. The small class sizes and faith-focused school will help our children continue to practice kindness and love.

Through Stephanie’s work, she does have the ability to take a 12-week maternity leave for baby’s arrival.

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What We Will Share

Teaching your child about all things is important and we recognize that sharing your story with them is equally important. We promise to work together with you, talk about you and tell them how much you love them. Our home will always be a safe place for our children, and your child will know that. We know you love them, that’s why you are making the best decision for them. Please trust that we will be here for not only your child, but also for you.

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Our Promise to You

We cannot put into words how hopeful we are for the future of your child. We promise to do our best to instill the same love that you would. We would even go so far as to make it known that your love for the child was so deep that you made a necessary sacrifice to provide the future you envision for the child. We commit to you that we will give them every opportunity possible to live the life they love and deserve.