Curtis and Tamara

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From Us to You

Dear Expectant Mom,

Thank you for taking the time to read about us!  We greatly admire your courage in considering an adoption plan. We are loving parents and are excited to welcome another child through adoption to complete our family.

Although Tamara has PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), which has prevented her from being able to carry a pregnancy past the first trimester, our desire to have children led us to seek out adoption as the way to grow our family.  In 2020, we were first able to realize our dream of becoming parents as we adopted our daughter, Ariana.  She is now a lively, happy toddler who LOVES babies and is so ready to be an amazing Big Sister! We are ALL excited and ready for our littlest addition to join us, whether a boy or girl!! We have a spacious home and nursery ready to go!

As a family, we love to road trip and explore new places!  We love to stop and smell the roses and do all the fun small things too. Because we are mostly work-from-home parents, our relaxed schedules give us lots of opportunities to be active and present parents to Ari and our future child.  We are often grabbing an ice cream, heading to the nearest park to slide the “big slide,” and going on overnight trips out of town.  We believe in free play and let Ariana decide what she likes.  While she was into firemen and dinosaurs a few months ago, her current fascinations are playing on the slide and the color PINK.  She loves “cooking” and taking care of her dolls. She is also learning sign language and wants to practice this a few times a day. We will fully support your child in discovering their interests and creativity, too.

We are Real Estate Investors, with Curt being a Real Estate Agent and Tamara bringing the artistic, design elements to the team.  We love improving homes and helping others find their dream homes.  We live in a lovely suburb that is rich in parks, family priorities, and award-winning schools.  Tamara’s family lives nearby and we have an excellent culturally diverse friend-based support system as well.  Both our family and friends are so excited for our next adoption!

We are more than happy to share updates, photos, videos, and even visits if that is what you are comfortable with. We love to road trip and are able to travel to you.  You will always hold a place of honor in our home.

Thank you so much for taking the time to consider us!  We know you have a big decision to make and are praying for you to have comfort and peace in this time.  We hope to hear from you soon! We are happy to answer more questions should you have them.  We wish you the best on your courageous journey.

With love,
Tamara and Curtis

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Why We are Choosing to Adopt

We have a deep love for children and wish to complete our family. We both are close with our siblings. There are so many unforgettable memories and experiences we shared with them that we want our children to experience. We know that the bond of siblings is unlike anything else.

Tamara has PCOS, which has made it extremely difficult to get pregnant and when she does, she is unable to carry a baby past the first trimester.  After trying for two years, we knew we would not be able to have biological children.  At that time, we realized that adoption is the path forward for our family. We have a safe home with lots of space that is ready to be filled with more sweet, tiny voices.

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About Tamara, by Curtis

Tamara is a planner and is always thinking ahead to keep our family organized.  She loves history and road trips.  Reading books and listening to music.  She also has pushed herself to try new things and has enjoyed experiencing different foods, places, and experiences. Tamara is thoughtful and often uses her creativity in ways that show her love for us.  She is an excellent cook and loves to garden and grow fresh produce to use in meals for our family. Ariana “helps” her make many dishes and enjoys the experience.  At work, Tamara is great with design and leads the remodeling plan for any of our projects.  At home, Tamara brings her creativity to her many sewing projects. She has designed many one-of-a-kind dresses for Ariana.  Ari loves this and gets very involved in fabric choices and colors.  Tamara loves animals and we frequently visit our local zoo, which is always a fun experience for the whole family. I know that Tamara will show your child how loved they are everyday, just like she does with Ari.

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About Curtis, by Tamara

Curtis is a very easygoing person.  He is great at doing home repairs and does most of the physical work in remodeling the homes we work in.  He has worked in home repairs since he was 17 years old and enjoys seeing the end result.  He is fascinated with history, airplanes, space, and ships.  He LOVES going to any kind of museum where he can study these for hours.  As a child, he did not travel much and it is so much fun to get out and show him new things. The past year, he has pushed himself to try new things which have included things like a rope course, new places to eat, and going to new locations.  We have discovered the challenge of “trying new things” has been a lot of fun.  With Ari, he is like a big kid and they have a lot of fun playing together.  He will even play tea party with her and really encourages her in imaginative play. I know that he will have so much fun helping your child discover their interests and passions.

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Lifestyle

We are both self-employed in real estate investing.  Unless we are out on a project, we are home working at the kitchen table.  This has led to a very easygoing lifestyle in which Ariana has been able to stay in the home with us.  She loves when we are talking about our next project and likes to help make decisions like color and tile. 

We attend church weekly and Ari loves her Sunday School class.  Ari’s favorite family member is her 14-year-old cousin Christiana.  As Christiana is an only child, she also just loves Ari to pieces.  She will often babysit Ari or come along for a family outing to spend time together.  Because we are self-employed, we are able to take spontaneous vacations throughout the year and love to do road trips and see new things.

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Adoption in Our Lives

Our first adoption is what is called a “stork drop”.  We received a phone call one day and Ariana was born the very next day. Ariana’s mother chose not to have any contact but does know that we are very open to connecting if she chooses to in the future. We have gathered pictures and as much information as we can share with Ariana.

Ariana’s joining our family totally changed our lives for the better.  We had such a vacant hole in our life where we were succeeding everywhere else.  We know that bringing another child into our home is going to only further enrich our lives.  We love slowing down and taking the time to spend with our child enjoying all her developmental stages.  We feel even more prepared to spend this time with a second child and feel confident in how to raise a child in a positive atmosphere.  We are frequently complimented on what a happy child we have.  Ariana is very happy and engaging with others because she has a supportive environment at home to build healthy self-confidence.  Providing a positive atmosphere is important to us, and we will make sure your child has the same experience. 

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Home & Neighborhood

We live in a quiet suburb near a large metro area.  It is the best of two worlds with a safe quiet neighborhood feel but being so close to many entertainment venues, including a children’s museum, one of the top 5 zoos in America, and many more options for shopping, dining, and entertainment.  Our neighborhood has a clubhouse and pool, along with beautiful walking paths.  We are a few blocks away from an award-winning elementary school.  Our area is very culturally diverse and is considered a “melting pot” community.  We live in a spacious, two-story brick home with large entertainment areas like a kitchen, living room, library/office, and dining room.  We have a large fenced-in backyard with a patio and outdoor kitchen area.  Ari loves to play in the large backyard as it gives her a safe space to run and play.  We all enjoy using our neighborhood pool in the summer.

Our passion is real estate development.  We love to remodel houses.  When we moved to this area 16 years ago, we were appalled at the housing situation in our local community.  We have made it our mission to find vacant or distressed properties and bring them up to beautiful, functional living spaces.  It is so rewarding to see people walk through our properties and express their amazement at how we revived the property. It is an accomplished feeling that never gets old for us.  Because of this passion, we have grown a portfolio of houses that will be passed on to our children someday.  We hope to teach them to honor the community by maintaining beautiful housing as we have strived to do.

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Our Families & Friends

Curt’s family lives all over the world, including New Zealand where he was born, Australia, Canada, Holland, Japan, and in Northwestern USA.  Tamara’s mother and sister live within a few miles, while her father lives in Idaho.  We are very interactive with Tamara’s mother, sister, brother-in-law, niece, and brother-in-law’s family.  We also have a large peer group that is very culturally diverse, including Haitians, Hispanics, Jamaicans, and Hondurans, along with many other cultures.  We love the diversity and celebrate our differences as one big community.  We love to go to one another’s houses for dinner and games.  Currently, our game fascination is with Catan.  We visit family outside our local community as often as we can and have spent the last two Thanksgiving with Tamara’s father and Curt’s brother and family.

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Racial & Cultural Diversity

Not only do we live in a racially diverse community, but our friends also reflect diversity.  We have numerous friends who are biracial couples (Black and White, Hispanic and White, Black and Hispanic, Vietnamese and White, etc) and have “adopted” some close friends into our family when their own families disowned them for marrying outside their culture.  Our peer group includes just as many mixed-race children as not.  Our Hispanic brother-in-law is a translator and works closely with refugees and non-English-speaking Hispanics.  Through our church, we are finding avenues to work with other recent refugees that have been displaced from their countries due to unrest.  Once a year, our local church celebrates cultural diversity by celebrating “All Nation’s Sunday” where we highlight the cultures found in our church including singing in different languages, wearing culturally appropriate clothing, and eating cultural food.  It is an amazing celebration that reflects our heart for the inclusiveness of all nations. Your child’s heritage and culture will be celebrated in every aspect of our lives.

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Family Traditions

Christmas is our biggest family tradition.  All the family goes to Tamara’s sister and brother-in-law’s house on Christmas Eve where we give gifts, have a huge family meal, and check in on our yearly goals.  It is Tamara’s favorite time of year (maybe because her birthday is in December as well).  Tamara is very into celebrating all types of holidays and makes sure our family celebrates almost all of them. Our family gets together for birthdays as well.  We are all busy entrepreneurs, and the time together is treasured. As many of the family are traveling, we typically host a Friendsgiving around Thanksgiving time. We find ways to celebrate the small moments every week, whether it is going out to eat or taking a half day off to go have fun.  We truly believe that reaching goals should be celebrated.

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Travel

We LOVE to vacation and road trip.  We visit Florida multiple times a year, mostly in the winter to get warm.  We also try to go to new places every year.  We are currently not traveling internationally, but plan to do so when the children are old enough to truly appreciate the experience.  Until then, the next few places on our bucket list include Boston,  San Francisco, and Yellowstone National Park.  Really who knows where we will end up next as we frequently pack up and take off for a day or two to see something new.  We value experiencing different places and cultures and love taking Ariana with us.  In our local metro area, there are also many things to explore and we are always finding something new to do locally.

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Our Promise to You

Our promise to you is that you will always hold a place of honor in our home.  We will remain connected with you to the level of your comfort.  We will facilitate visits (we love to travel) and are open to video calls, photo sharing, videos, etc.  We will never feel threatened by your presence and would love to include you as part of our family.   Your child will always know that you loved them enough to make the best choice for them and will never be made to feel abandoned by you as their mother.  We want you to know that giving your child the gift of life is not taken lightly.  We also feel so honored to be able to grow our family through adoption and will cherish your child just as much as we cherish our first adopted child, Ariana.  We promise to allow your child to have their own personality, likes, and dislikes.  We promise to give them the best education they want to obtain.  We promise to be in their lives for the remainder of our own and they will never have to feel alone or fend for themselves without our help. They will know how much they are loved!