Ricky and Kasey

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From Us to You

Dear Expectant Mama,

Our names are Kasey and Ricky and we’re so incredibly humbled you are taking the time to get to know us. We can’t begin to imagine the magnitude of the selfless decision you are making in considering adoption for your child. But we want you to know that your decision will make our world complete in its entirety. We admire your strength and bravery as you navigate this journey. We are here for you, always.

In our home, you will forever be cherished in our eyes and in the eyes of your child. You will be honored and celebrated each day of your child’s life as we share your story. You will be supported, loved, and prayed for daily. You will always be a part of our family.

Most importantly, your child will be loved unconditionally by us, our family, our friends, and of course, Scarlet and Patton, our sweet pups. They will be supported endlessly through life’s greatest adventures, and life’s ups and downs. They will learn to love big, to be kind, and enjoy life to the fullest. Our home will forever be filled with happiness, love, belly laughs, and endless amounts of bear hugs.

We know that the path that led you to this choice could not have been easy for you, but know that you are loved and brave beyond words. We are incredibly grateful that you would consider us as parents to raise your child. Thank you for helping make our dreams come true in growing our family. We look forward to the day when we will meet you and share our unconditional love with you and your sweet baby.

With love,
Ricky and Kasey

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Why We are Choosing to Adopt

We are choosing adoption because our hearts long to share our unconditional love and joy with a child. Having a family of our own has always been a dream of ours since we got married. What we could’ve never imagined was the heartache, grief and pain that would come with making this dream a reality for us. Throughout the past three years, we have experienced the sadness of losing five precious babies during pregnancy. Our sweet Remy was stillborn in June 2021 and our sweet Bowie arrived at 22 weeks and passed away shortly after he was born. They will forever be our inspiration and strength in all that we do.

Our hearts have always been led to adoption throughout our journey to growing our family, but we know now, without a doubt, this is His plan for us. We vow to always give your child a nurturing home that is happy, safe and full of laughter while honoring Remy, Bowie and you. Adopting your child will forever change our lives and this beautiful opportunity will never be taken for granted. Your baby is so loved and will be supported endlessly.

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Our Journey to Parenthood

Our journey to parenthood has been incredibly difficult for us both. We have endured the immense pain of losing five babies along the way, with our most recent, who was born in May at 22 weeks due to complications with Kasey’s pregnancy. Last summer we lost another, who was stillborn at 25 weeks. We have never felt so much happiness and sadness all at once and we never expected hello and goodbye to be on the same day. They are so special to us and will always be a part of who we are as a family. They are forever our inspiration in all that we do. We are beyond blessed to call them ours. We will continue to honor their legacy through our foundation which provides memory boxes to local hospitals in memory of our sweet boys. The boxes will be given to families going through a loss. It’s our hope that these boxes will provide the families with a little bit of light during days of darkness.

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About Kasey, by Ricky

When I met Kasey in 2015, I knew within minutes of our conversation that she is a genuine soul. She has a warmth and compassion to her aura that is undeniable. As I got to know her better throughout our relationship, I got to witness her on many occasions with children, and it only confirmed my beliefs that she would one day be an extraordinary mother. She will no doubt love your baby unconditionally, for the rest of her life. She is kind-hearted and everyone who meets her falls in love with her fun-loving personality. From friends, family, and colleagues she is always looking to be a helping hand and a listening ear. Every day, because of her positive outlook on life, and the joy she brings into our world, she makes me a better person. I am so blessed to call her my wife and to be able to share the journey of parenthood with her.

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About Ricky, by Kasey

When I first met Ricky, I was immediately attracted to his laid-back personality and, of course, his genuine smile. He has the biggest heart and can make us all belly laugh with his jokes. He can build just about anything and loves to cook…who doesn’t love those qualities?! But what I adore the most about him is his love for kids. To watch him interact with children of all ages, whether it be the kids he coaches, our cousins, or our niece and nephew, is to be in awe of his ability to build relationships and connect with them. Ricky will be an amazing daddy to your child! He is patient, kind, fun, and loving. I know, without a doubt, he will be their biggest supporter and loudest cheerleader.

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Lifestyle

We think our lifestyle is the perfect blend of being adventurous and laid back. We enjoy living life to the fullest and being present in all that we do. You can find us exploring fun, new places in and around our city. We always try to take full advantage of all the beauty our city has to give, like going to concerts, sporting events and hiking the breathtaking trails around the lakes. We can see your baby growing to love the outdoors and going on hikes with us. In the summer, we especially love visiting our favorite ice cream shop on hot summer evenings for a delicious sweet treat! Even our pups join us for a pup cup. We’re excited to share our love of all things ice cream with your child. During the fall months, you’ll find us doing all things football whether it be traveling to Ohio to watch the Ohio State Buckeyes or staying local to watch the Tennessee Titans or Vanderbilt Commodores…we love fall and football!! We can just see your sweet baby “game day” ready and cheering on our favorite teams.

We’re a fun loving, easy going couple who also love a relaxing evening at home snuggled up watching our favorite movie, eating pizza, and playing a game or two!  Our evenings, during the week, are spent cooking dinner together and catching up on the day’s adventures. We can see us gathered around the table with your baby enjoying a home-cooked meal. After dinner, we take our sweet pups on a walk through the neighborhood. We can’t wait for your little one to join us on our walks and be loved on by our sweet friends and neighbors. On the weekends, we enjoy doing projects around the house. Making our house a warm and inviting home where everyone feels welcomed and loved is important to us.

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Our Passions

We are both passionate about traveling and exploring all that our beautiful world has to offer. Whether it be visiting Ricky’s brother in Nevada to explore beautiful Lake Tahoe or visiting Kasey’s family in Ohio to roam the Columbus Zoo…we love to go on new adventures. We believe it is so important to learn about different cultures and what better way to do it than to travel. Our favorite trips have been to Key West, Hawaii, England, Paris, and Italy. The sights and smells are just breathtakingly amazing. We are excited to go on many travel adventures with your child!

Ricky: One word to describe myself would be a “trailblazer.” I have spent my entire adult life creating my own path. During my college career, I knew my passion was to work in the sports world.  At 20 years old I took my love for track and field and created a club team that competes nationally. When I first started the team, my mission was simple, I wanted to create a welcoming environment that provided an equitable and inclusive space for all kids. A decade later I have a nationally renowned team that draws attention from all levels of the sport. I have always been willing to share my advice with families looking for help or guidance in the track and field community. Through my coaching, I have grown to love kids of all ages, whether working with high school-aged or elementary-aged youth, I pride myself in finding ways to make connections and build relationships with them. Outside of track and field I am an avid studier of history, and can regularly be found reading a book in our living room with Patton by my side. It’s universally agreed, history lessons would be way more entertaining if I were leading the class 🙂

Kasey: I like to think of myself as an enthusiastic, happy-go-lucky person who has a positive outlook on life. Throughout my life, I’ve grown passionate about a lot of things, but my most favorite passion is being a teacher.  I’ve been a kindergarten teacher for fourteen years. I knew at a young age I wanted to work with children and be a part of shaping and molding their little minds for the future. It’s my greatest blessing to instill a love for learning in all my students’ hearts and lives. Being a teacher has given me the honor of teaching students of all different races and ethnicities. I enjoy building relationships and making connections with my students and their families.  I am a better person because of the values and love my students have instilled in me. Outside of teaching, I’m passionate about decorating in hopes that our home is a warm and inviting place for all who walk through our front door. I love changing my décor with the seasons, but my absolute favorite is Christmas!

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Our Sweet Pups

Meet Scarlet, Patton and Hazel; three of our greatest blessings who are adored and loved beyond measure. Scarlet is a sassy, eight-year-old goldendoodle who loves to hold hands. She is full of love with her larger than life personality. Patton is a sweet, eleven year-old lab who loves to snuggle his toys in bed with him. His calm demeanor makes him an easy dog to love. Hazel is a one year old mini-goldendoodle with a spunky personality. She loves to be with her humans and is our littlest sidekick. They all enjoy endless amounts of belly rubs and treats. These sweet pups are anxiously awaiting their biggest promotion yet…big sisters and big brother! They can’t wait to have a little one running around to show the ropes to.

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Home & Neighborhood

Our home is nestled in a beautiful, quaint neighborhood in Middle Tennessee. We adore our lovely two-story, three-bedroom home with a large fenced-in yard and beautiful covered porch perfect for entertaining. In the fall, we enjoy watching football on the patio and roasting marshmallows in the firepit with our friends. This summer, we built a colorful butterfly garden in memory of our sweet boys that is tucked away in our backyard. We look forward to the day when we can share our love for gardening with your little one.  On the inside of our home, you’ll find Kasey’s love for interior design with the inviting, warm and cozy farmhouse family feel. The great room is open to the kitchen and dining room where we love to have family and friends gather for holidays, meals, and game nights. You will always find us spending quality time and building relationships with the ones we love. Our home is our happy place! We can’t wait to make memories in our home as a family of 3 +2 pups! 🙂

Our neighborhood is amazing and the perfect place to raise a family! Many families in our community have small children. We love to see them out playing when we take our fur kids, Scarlet and Patton, for a walk. The kiddos beam with excitement to greet our pups with the sweetest of hugs and belly rubs. We’re located just a few minutes from a kid-friendly park filled with playgrounds, baseball fields, and beautiful walking trails. Scarlet and Patton love to join us there for a little game of fetch on the weekends. We’re grateful to live in a diverse neighborhood where kids can be kids and play together in their yards and community. We have a wonderful group of neighbors who are just like family. Most weekends are spent catching up with each other, whether it be a cookout in the summer, Halloween party in the fall, or a gift exchange around the holidays, we are blessed to call our neighbors friends.

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Racial & Cultural Diversity

As advocates for children (Kasey as a teacher and Ricky as a coach), recognizing and appreciating racial and cultural diversity has always been very important to us.  We believe all people are special and unique and deserve to be loved immensely. We continue to accept and embrace our unique differences in our home and community. We’re committed to always learning and growing as individuals so that your child will understand how diversity affects them, us, and the world around them.

It is important to us that your child have role models that reflect who they are and their culture. We are so grateful to have a close circle of friends who are diverse and eager to provide support and love throughout this journey of helping us and your child feel connected to you and to each of us. Your child will be encouraged to know and be their authentic self. Most importantly, they will be supported and loved unconditionally for their uniqueness. After all, it’s our differences that make the world an amazing place to live.  We are overjoyed to welcome new traditions into our family and home.

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Our Sweet Families & Friends

To us, our family means everything. They’ve taught us to love well and to be grateful for all that we have. We love making memories with them, whether it be our summer vacations, family holidays, or game nights, we enjoy our quality time together. They always bring us so much joy and laughter. We’ve both been blessed to be very close with our parents throughout our childhood and our adulthood as we grow older. Our parents have instilled in us the power of loving completely in a marriage. Kasey’s parents have been married for 43 years and continue to love each other endlessly. They recently just made Tennessee their home and can’t wait to have a grandbaby to love unconditionally. Ricky’s parents have been married for 36 years and are the perfect example of love and kindness. They live in Florida and have fully embraced their Gaga and Papa status by welcoming twin grandbabies last year. Our parents show us limitless support and unconditional love with their entire being and lead by example.

Ricky has one sister and one brother, with who he is very close. They live in different states, so traveling to visit them is a big part of who we are as a family. We adore our niece and nephew, who just turned a year old.  We are also very close with Kasey’s cousin and his girls. They are 12 and 9 years old and so full of life and charisma. We can’t wait for your little one to join the crew and be a part of our endless amounts of love and laughter. Our families are both very eager to welcome your child with open arms.

In addition to our families, we have a very close-knit group of friends that we are incredibly grateful for. Some live near and some live far, but no matter the distance, we always make it a point to spend time together, whether it be through facetime or visiting each other for long weekends. We feel so fortunate to have these amazing friends in our life who are always there for us. We enjoy celebrating life’s greatest adventures with them…and they are thrilled to be celebrating our biggest adventure yet…welcoming your child into our lives.

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Family Traditions

Traditions have always been a big part of who we are as a couple. Having close relationships with our families and friends has given us the opportunity to enjoy many traditions through the years. Most of our traditions began during our childhood and have been carried on throughout our adult lives. We are grateful for our loved ones who remain close to carry on our fun traditions. We are beyond excited to share these with your child and make new memories that will last a lifetime.

Here are a few of our favorite traditions:

Vacations: Each summer we venture to North Carolina with Kasey’s family for a week of relaxation and fun in the sun. They have been enjoying this beautiful vacation spot for over 30 years.We stay in a quaint beach with a laid-back vibe where most every restaurant and shop are locally owned. We rent a beautiful ocean-front beach house and spend our days together building sandcastles, walking the beach, hunting for seashells, and playing games in the sand. We can already see your baby dipping their toes in the ocean for the first time. What joy it will bring to our hearts to hear their giggles and laughter as we make many precious memories together beachside. Our days at the beach are full of adventures, food, and sun-kissed skin spent with cousins, aunts, and uncles. Ending the day with ice cream and an evening walk on the beach to soak in the sunset is a must. It is easily one of our favorite trips to make unforgettable memories. We can’t wait for your baby to join us for all the family fun. Another special tradition is to visit Florida several times a year, especially for the holidays. Ricky’s parents and sister’s family all live there. We enjoy spending quality time with them and loving on our niece and nephew. Exploring the shopping of downtown St. Augustine and visiting the beaches is always a must when we visit.

Our traditions during the fall include football and pumpkins…and more football and pumpkins. Fall, for us, is for football watching on the back porch with a fire and the smell of s’mores being made in the cool brisk air. We can see ourselves snuggled up with our pups and your baby cheering on the Buckeyes. We can’t wait to see them decked out in scarlet and gray (if Kasey gets her way ;)). We already have their first Ohio State onesie ready for game day. Our annual trip to the pumpkin farm to go pumpkin pickin’ is something we are excited to do every year. It always takes a few trips to bring back all the pumpkins we collect from the patch. We look forward to the day when we can carve our first jack-o-lantern together as a family of 3!

Our most favorite traditions are enjoyed around the Holidays. Whether we are gathering with friends or family, we love to have a fun time filled with an abundance of love during this season.  Kasey decorates our house from ceiling to floor and we’re told it looks like something straight out of a Hallmark Christmas movie. Ricky lines the roof with twinkling Christmas lights and makes the outdoor space look festive. Every year we are blessed to spend time with both of our families during the holidays. Each year we get together to make all the yummy Christmas goodies for our Christmas Eve extravaganza where we have a gift exchange and eat until our bellies are full! On Christmas Eve, we open our new matching Christmas pajamas and hurry to put them on, make the yummiest hot chocolate with more marshmallows than we can count, jump in our car, blast Christmas carols and ride around to look at Christmas lights. We can’t wait to see your baby’s eyes light up as we search the sky for Santa on Christmas Eve. When we get home, we snuggle up on the couch and watch The Grinch with the bright lights from our tree glowing. After the snuggles, we get our cookies and milk ready for the big guy in red. We can picture your baby helping us bake their favorite cookies to leave for Santa… and we can’t forget about the reindeer! Before we go to sleep, we sprinkle magical reindeer food for them on the lawn. The sprinkles shining will be sure they don’t miss our house! Christmas morning, we wake up to the sweet smell of cinnamon rolls filling our house. We enjoy breakfast together with our loved ones reminiscing about Christmas pasts. We all gather around the tree laughing and sharing our gifts with each other. The joy your baby will bring us on this day and all others will truly be unmatched.

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Our Promise to You

If you choose us as parents for your baby, you will be making our biggest dream come true. We will forever be grateful for you and the selfless decision you’ve made. Family isn’t always blood, but it is love, compassion, and kindness. We choose this every day in our relationship with each other and with our families. Our hearts are overjoyed to be given the gift of loving your baby unconditionally, forever. We promise to make unforgettable memories and new traditions with your child. They will be supported endlessly, loved unconditionally, and prayed for daily. We promise to celebrate life’s greatest milestones, no matter how big or small. We promise to teach your child that our words and actions matter…kindness is of utmost importance. We will love your child big and they will learn to love with their whole heart. We promise to always speak positively of you and honor your and your child’s wishes. We will always share our story and forever remind your child how brave and strong you are. Our hearts are so full of gratitude for you and your sweet baby. You will forever hold a place in our hearts and lives, this we can promise you. We will love your child, forever and always.