Luis and Erica

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From Us to You

Dear Expectant Mother,

We have yet to meet you, but we already want you to know that You Are Our Hero! Seriously, you are our hero! We mean this from the bottom of our hearts and will forever be grateful to you for the beautiful life you are blessing to this world, and hopefully our world. Your willingness to proceed with this journey is a testament to your selfless and loving heart. We promise to forever cherish you and the miracle you may bless to our family!

Our commitment to you is that this child of yours will be filled with unmatched love every day: story-time fun before bed, kisses first thing in the morning, building forts in the living room, family bear hugs, playground fun, signing silly songs in the car, dancing in the rain, sipping hot cocoa by the fire place, playing boardgames, family walks on a crisp cool day and much more. We look forward to all the moments with your special one, especially all the sweet little moments of life!

We understand that this is your unique journey, and our hope is that by the end of this, should you select us, you will be able to take a deep breath with a sigh of relief knowing that you made the right decision. We are here to support you through this process and want you to be as involved, or not, as much as you feel comfortable.

Know that should you select us, we will be completely committed to you and your child and are ready to give you our joy-filled, resounding YES!

Here is a bit about us!

We love to live a life full of faith, joy, fun, goofiness, honesty, support and generosity. These traits are sprinkled in all that we do and in interactions with our loved ones, friends and neighbors. Some things we love to do include running around in the backyard with our dogs, cooking in the kitchen with our parents to learn family recipes, attending church and teaching bible classes, baking tasty treats (especially if it’s chocolate… or really anything with cookie dough), playing boardgames at the kitchen table and just hanging out together! We live close to our families so it’s fun to visit with our parents, siblings and extended family for things like game nights, weekend BBQ’s, family birthday celebrations, weddings and much more.

Thank you for the time you are devoting to finding the right family to raise your little one! We want you to know that you are already so special to us, and we are praying for you. If you are open to it, we would love to meet you and see if we could be the right family for you! Regardless of who you choose, we want the best life for you and your little one and we respect your decision. Feel free to take a skim through our profile and we can make ourselves available to you at ANYTIME should you like to connect!

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Why We're Choosing to Adopt

We are choosing to adopt as we’ve always wanted to grow a family this way! We both come from large families and, while we love being the “fun aunt and uncle,” we are super excited and ready to take the next step to be parents. Erica comes from a family with several adopted cousins and all throughout childhood they loved sharing diverse experiences with one another. No matter whether we have biological or adopted children, we are incredibly ready and would be honored to love your child as our own!

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About Erica, by Luis

Erica is a beautiful person, and I mean that in every sense of the word, first as a friend, then as my girlfriend, fiancé and now wife. Ever since I met Erica she has had the ability to shine light into my life! And later, as I started meeting her family, I noticed that she also brought light to every single one of her family members. Everyone loves her enthusiasm, energy, patience, and willingness to put anything aside in order to “just be there” for those that need her. Those were the first traits that I noticed about her, and that was just the beginning! It didn’t take long for me to realize that she would make a terrific wife and future mom. Nothing makes her happier than sharing her gifts with her loved ones, to make their day better, and to give rather than to take. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Erica will be the best mom, and I know the time is coming for her to prove it! I just hope I can be just as good a father as she will be as a mother!

As for Erica’s hobbies, you can almost always find her in the kitchen baking up something yummy! And I say “almost always” because I finish her baked goods fairly quickly lol. She enjoys taking virtual Zumba classes in our living room or coming up with new tunes playing the piano (she doesn’t want to get rusty so she can teach your child to play the piano too). I would say though, one of her biggest hobbies, and most enjoyable, is for us to go on long runs, or walks, through our neighborhood with our dogs!

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About Luis, by Erica

Luis is a genuine, wise and self-giving person. The first time I met Luis, I knew he had the biggest heart and ALWAYS knew he’d make the most terrific father. When I see him play with our nieces and nephews, I always think “he was born to do this!” I also noticed from day one how attentive, supportive and loving Luis is to his parents and he has a special relationship with his mom. I learn from his example every day and he goes out of his way to show people he loves them. Some of my favorite things include when he comes home early from work to help me cook dinner, surprises me at work with flowers, cleans up the house so I can rest in the evenings, gives me piggy back rides when I hurt my ankle, taking the dogs out for walks… and I can truly say that I have no doubt he will do this and so much more for your baby!

As for hobbies, Luis is incredibly handy! If anything breaks in the house, he will fix it and even make it better! He has built so many cool pieces of furniture and artwork that we have in our house today, all from his wood-working shop in the garage. Some of his most recent builds include a desk for our home office, a beautiful bookshelf, mirror decor and floating shelves. You can also find him in the kitchen perfecting the recipes he learned in Italy, including Pasta Carbonara and Tiramisu.

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Our Home and Neighborhood

We really love our home and our neighborhood! We live in a peaceful neighborhood with lots of trees, paths, trails, playgrounds, farmers markets, festivals, and our family nearby. Our warm, brick home sits on an acre of grassy land in the suburbs of northern Virginia. We have a big backyard where you’ll typically find us playing fetch with the pups, having bonfires with friends and family, hosting bible studies, playing sports (soccer, volleyball, Frisbee, you name it!) and just enjoying the fresh air. We have even camped in our backyard!

From the moment you walk into our home, you are greeted with kisses from Max and Mila (our incredibly friendly Siberian Huskies) and then you’ll walk straight to the kitchen island, where you’ll likely find Erica whipping up something yummy. Our home is open concept, so you can pretty much see everywhere from any spot. Some of the things we love about our neighborhood is the abundance of trees and nature, we can walk around for miles feeling safe, we have wonderful neighbors who are very family oriented and it is very diverse. The schools here are nationally ranked and this was important to us, as we want to ensure our children get the very best education! Within walking distance of the house, you’ll find lots of paths that lead to playgrounds, basketball/tennis courts, multiple pools, our neighbor Joyce’s famous garden, and if you’re lucky, Lucy and Bear will be outside to greet you with a warm kiss (her dogs). We absolutely love our neighborhood and home and are incredibly excited for the day we get to share all of this with your child!

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Our Sweet Pups

We have 2 huskies that we love and adore! While they have such unique personalities, the biggest similarity they share is that they LOVE children! Mila, the brown and white husky, is 8 years old and Max, the black and white husky, is 3 years old. They are wonderful companions, incredibly playful and love to play in the backyard as well as cuddle up by the fireplace. We love bringing the dogs to family gatherings, as all of the nieces and nephews love to play with them. At a recent family gathering, our nephew/godson, Andre, was pulling Max’s tail and climbing on him like he was going to ride a horse and Max just loved all of the attention. Our family will also dress them up on the occasion. As for activities, we love to take Max and Mila out for walks through the neighborhood, go on hikes, and do the occasional beach trip with them where they get to run into the ocean, play in the sand and make other doggy friends!

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Our Family and Friends

Family is very important! Both of us come from large families (Luis has 6 siblings and Erica has 4 siblings), so there is always fun to be had! Whether we are celebrating a family member’s birthday, meeting up after church for Sunday brunch, playing sports in the backyard or just relaxing at home, we love enjoying family time!

We are also blessed with 23 nieces and nephews who range from 6 months to 25 years old (told ya our family was big, lol!) With all of the dance concerts, soccer games, baseball tournaments, karate performances, first communions and more, we have a blast living close to our family and being a part of their lives. The younger ones especially love coming over to our house and playing outside with Max and Mila. Our 4- and 8-year-old nephews keep asking us, “Tia Erica, when can you have babies so we can play with them?!” We can’t wait for the day when your child gets to play with all of their cousins and has a fun upbringing like we had!

Laughter has always been and always will be an important part of our life. We are a family who loves to share good times with laughter but also lean on each other when times aren’t perfect. Humor and humility have gotten us through some tough times (pandemic, family members passing, etc.) and we know we can always count on each other.

Our circle of friends also includes close childhood friends as well as neighbors and friends from church. Many of our friends are young, married couples with infants and newborns, so it’s a blast to get to be a part of their upbringing. Since many of our close friends live nearby, we look forward to the day when we will be able to host play dates with the little ones!

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Racial and Cultural Diversity

Having come from different ethnicities, we love sharing our cultures with one another and our families! From the food, music, traditions, history, and the importance of family, we love embracing different cultures and adding inclusive values into our daily lives. We also have a support system that is diverse in nature. From family members of different ethnic backgrounds (both adopted family members and interracial family members) to the communities we are a part of, we are surrounded by loving, unique and incredible individuals. We are also blessed to live in such an ethnically diverse community and love attending different festivals, parades, language classes, etc. to grow in our understanding and support of all ethnicities. With this in mind, we would welcome a child/children from ANY background into our home and honor their heritage so they too can be well-rounded and feel confident. We would incorporate aspects of their culture into our daily lives to ensure that, as a family, we have a true sense of belonging, comfort and love.

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Our Lifestyle

We both like to live a healthy, physical and spiritual lifestyle. On any given weekend, you can find us out and about, walking around local farmers markets, going for long walks or runs, going to the gym and more.

While our lifestyle is one that’s active, we also make sure to create a balance and enjoy quality time at home and with loved ones. On the weekends you can usually find us attending mass, enjoying homemade meals at home, lighting the fireplace and watching a fun movie, and hanging out with friends or family. We look forward to the day when we can introduce your little one into the mix and do fun activities like going to the park, walk around the zoo, swim in Mommom’s pool, play at the playgrounds on playdates and more.

Our profession and positions afford both of us extreme flexibility. During the first twelve weeks of bringing your son or daughter home we will be with them full time. We will modify our schedules so one of us, if not both, are with our new precious addition. We will remain flexible about what the future looks like. We both grew up with working parents and experienced much love and appreciation for the sacrifices that our parents made and we want to see what works best for our family unit.

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Family Traditions

Whatever we do, we like to infuse it with fun!

Daily Traditions: We pray before each meal and do our best to go to daily Mass. We always eat dinner together and sometimes while cooking you’ll find us listening to music and dancing in the kitchen.

Holiday Traditions: Thanksgiving is always spent with our families where we play board-games, go around the table saying what we are most thankful for and eat way too much turkey and pecan pie (mom’s secret recipe.)

Christmas: In our household Christmas is not just a day, it’s a season! It’s totally a thing!!! There’s so much to be grateful for, so we like to celebrate as long as we can 😉 Not only do we decorate the house, light up the Christmas tree and play lots of Christmas tunes, we have lots of family traditions. Some of these traditions include white elephant surprise gift exchanges, watching classic movies together, going sledding with the dogs (they are snow dogs after all) and Erica makes treats for the family that the nieces/nephews request every year!

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Vacations

We love the beach!!! Erica’s parents own a beach house and we love spending long weekends there with family. Some of our favorite memories include swimming in the ocean, playing games in the sand, playing putt-putt golf, walking along the boardwalk, eating crabs, shopping and watching the beautiful sunrise!

We also love to travel to different countries and experience new cultures! Whether we are in Tuscany, Italy learning how to cook homemade pasta from an Italian grandmother, in the Dominican Republic traveling to farms and tasting the best cacao, or Galway, Ireland exploring the coast and all of its greenery, we love exploring new areas and appreciating different cultures.

We’ve had so many wonderful experiences, but are ready to make new memories with a family! We dream of the day we take our family to Disney World where Luis wears Mickey ears, Erica packs the lunches and we jump on as many rides as we can. We look forward to bringing your child to the beach and building sandcastles, searching for sea shells and exploring local creameries till we find the BEST brownie sundae! We can’t wait to travel and create new experiences as a family and make new fun memories!

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Our Relationships with our Parents

Our parents have been great examples in both of our lives and we are very close with them! Since we live so close, we enjoy getting together with our parents and family often for weekend visits, cookouts, birthdays, camping trips, Sunday dinners, holidays, pool parties, sporting events, and more. Our families love to cook so you can generally find us congregated in the kitchen, listening to music, playing board games and eating yummy food! When we were growing up, our parents were our biggest fans in whatever activity we tried (Erica- dance, soccer, acting, piano, track) (Luis- soccer and football) and we can’t wait to be the biggest cheerleaders to your child!

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What We will Teach your Child

First and foremost your child will know love! They will be taught to be caring, honest, curious and joyful. We want to share the value of a good education, great work-ethics, care, respect for others and ultimately love for family! Our faith in God is the foundation of our marriage and home and we are dedicated to raising your child with the morals and teachings aligned with our faith.

We also want to instill a sense of humor, spontaneity and goofiness in your child, as well as confidence and a positive self-image. We will foster creativity, imagination and teach them a love of nature, people and culture. We will make every opportunity available to them to help them become the best person they can be.

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Our Promise to You

We will always honor you and reinforce that your child’s story started from a place of strength and love. We promise to raise your child to know their worth and know that they are incredibly loved. Your child will be joyfully received in a household that has been praying for you and your baby for years! We are beyond ready to open our hearts and our home and are excited to pour our love and share our traditions with your baby.

We promise that we will always love, protect, and care for your beautiful child. We promise that we will give them the best life that we are able to give: a life of unconditional love, family, and friends; and a life rich with nature, travel, good food, books and stories. We will work to instill in your baby the values of love, kindness, gratitude, and faith, but also an attitude of fun, playfulness, craziness, laughter, lightheartedness, and wonder.