Introductions

We are Matt and Cat and we live on a small farm in Strasburg, Colorado. We met during high school, and it didn’t take long for us to fall in love. We have been happily married for 10 years but have been together for 20. Through Matt’s military and civilian career, we moved all over and eventually landed in Colorado. It wasn’t your typical journey, and we definitely didn’t follow the traditional path. Through trials and tribulations, we both realized we needed to go back to school, later in our lives, to obtain our college degrees and we both enjoy successful careers in Systems Engineering and Insurance Management. We wanted to accomplish certain milestones in life before bringing a child into the world. When we realized that naturally conceiving was not an option there was the initial sadness; however, it quickly turned to joy and excitement as we began the adoption process. Matt was adopted at a very young age, and we understood how beneficial adoption can be for the birth mother, child, and adoptive parents. Now a little bit about the home the child will grow up in. The amount of love in this home is indescribable by words. The child will be happy and will know that they are loved and wanted. It is the simple things in life that are important to us, a good home, good health, stable marriage, and beyond all happiness. If the birth parent chooses, we would like our child to know about their birth parents, the incredible amount of love they had for the child, and the sacrifice they made to ensure the child was provided for in life. We will teach our child about love, respect, hard work, and most of all how to have fun. They will spend their time experiencing life rather than watching it on television. Education is important to us, and our child will receive a good elementary and secondary education. College is a personal decision, and we will support our child in whatever decision they make. Most important to us is that the child be provided with the opportunities they need to pursue the path they choose in life. We look forward to watching our child grow and mature; support them as they stumble in life; and, of course, will celebrate with them as they experience the many successes in their life.

We met on an online dating site. I noticed right away that Peter was special. He asked good questions and took a genuine interest in getting to know who I was. I was intrigued by him. After a couple of weeks of exchanging long messages, he asked me out to dinner. Our first date was at a restaurant called Smokey Bones. We felt at ease with one another right away and more dates followed, including bowling, a trip to the zoo, going to an indoor amusement park, and trying new restaurants. We enjoyed our second date at a local Thai restaurant where our connection deepened. Later, Peter proposed by setting up a private dinner with food from this same restaurant. He also had a book made that included all of our email messages from when we were getting to know each other online. Since we decided on a small wedding, we had our ceremony at a local park pavilion on the most beautiful fall day. It was a perfectly simple, sunny, and wonderful day. We chose a small wedding with hopes of going on a big adventure for our honeymoon. We went to Ireland, a place I had always wanted to go. Peter had been there before on a high school trip, and had wanted to come back with his wife someday. I guess both of our dreams came true :)

We both attended Oklahoma State University and started dating after we graduated and moved back to our hometowns, in September 2011. On our second date we had a pizza baking competition, since Matt is the pizza connoisseur! Other favorite dates included going to museums, taking the dogs to dog parks, Thunder games, annual trip to the State Fair, and going to the local drive in movie. 

We were engaged in December 2013 on a ski trip. After discussing with Shae's mom how to do it, Matt decided he just couldn't wait any longer and proposed while our group was playing cards - right after Shae ate a blue sucker and had changed into her comfy clothes for the night. Shae's blue sucker caused her mouth to look like a Smurf, but love is blind! 

We were married on May 3, 2014 in the church that Shae grew up in and where we are now members. We asked our guests to wear orange, black or white and had Pistol Pete as a surprise guest at our reception!

Karsten was born in the crazy year that was 2020! Her birth mom choosing us to be her parents is truly a gift and an honor. Some of our favorite things to do as a family include going to OSU football games, visiting the zoo, and playing outside! 

Thank you for taking time to look through our family's profile. We know the magnitude of the decisions you're making right now, and although we do not know your name, we are praying that you are safe and healthy, and that you feel loved, supported and at peace.

With love,
Matt and Shae

We are a loving Iowa family hoping to grow our family through adoption and make you a part of our family if that's what you desire.

We have wanted to be parents since we got married in 2020 and it has been a long road, but we are preparing and ready for the day it finally happens.

We are so excited for the day we get to be parents and we are so grateful that you are considering us as prospective adoptive parents for your baby. <3

No matter what, our goal is to support you in your decision whether to parent, choose us for adoption or whether you pick another family. Your journey matters and we are so blessed to get the opportunity to walk alongside you!

Please reach out if you have any questions or would like to get to know us. <3

We first met in college when Jenn was a freshman and Jon was a junior. We were both on the track and field team together. We fell in love hard and fast and made our relationship work despite living in different states, multiple surgeries, medical uncertainties, finishing our degrees, and all of life's other surprises. We truly consider ourselves a team and our relationship continues to gain strength everyday we are together. Most importantly, Adeline, Charlotte and Eleanor are the lights of our lives and we can't imagine what we used to do before their first moms chose us to be their parents. They make us laugh, make our worst days better, make us want to be more loving, and challenge us to be the best parents we can. Our girls have changed us in all the best ways and make us want to be better people. 

We are a faithful couple who desire nothing more than to do Our Heavenly Father's will. We are fun, creative, outgoing and prayerful. We try to our best to serve God in many ways, always putting God and family first. We live life to its fullest and do so by embracing God's creation, living a healthy lifestyle, fostering healthy relationships, and engaging in adventures! We enjoy the beauty of simplicity and because of this we are always happy. 

I would like to introduce you to our family. My name is Julie, and my wonderful husband's name is Will. I am 30 years old, and Will is 31 years old. We have been married for a little over eight years. Will and I met at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. We had both grown up very involved in our churches, so it seems appropriate that we met at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry. We were friends for two years before we started dating. Will's kindness drew me to him. We dated and were engaged for a year and a half before getting married in 2015. Will and I love to travel, and some of our favorite places that we have visited are Spain and Portugal, the Grand Canyon, cruises to the Caribbean, and camping at State Parks, beaches, and other beautiful campgrounds around the Southeastern United States. We can't wait to share our love of travel and the world with a child. We spend a lot of our weekends going to football games, camping in our camper, hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains, and spending time with family either in East Tennessee or Middle Tennessee. I love to capture family adventures and memories with my camera. Since I am a professional photographer, I love to take pictures while we travel and around the local area. I look forward to capturing precious memories of our adopted child as they grow up.

Hello!  We're Sam and Robyn, and we're excited to give you a peek into the happy craziness that is our family.  We were married in 2016 and God has taken us through a lot of ups and downs, and a lot of adventures so far, and we're excited to see what lies ahead.

We love bright colors, interesting foods, books (more than we have shelves for), and being with friends and family.  We are passionate about theatre, histroy, and theology, and board games.  We're both extroverts and have hobbies that involve lots of people!  We're excited to open our hearts to you and we invite you to learn what our family is all about!

We were both home schooled and met in 2007 at a Speech and Debate Tournament.  We became good friends and were both involved in choir and drama, so we would see each other frequently.

After Robyn graduated high school, she spent some time doing volunteer work in Israel alongside people from all over the world.  During that time, because of the distance, we started writing letters.  The hand-written letter continued for years to be our favorite method of communication, in addition to facebook, email, and when things got serious, phone calls.  We talked about life, our faith and spiritual growth, our dreams for the future.  We talked about our views on family building and parenting, including our hope to adopt a child someday, as many people we knew had adopted (including Sam's parents).

Although we were both raised in faithful Christian families, our churches were very different from each other, which was a major point of contention, particularly with Robyn's dad.  It took many hears to work through things, but God changes hearts.  So, in July of 2016 we were officially engaged, and were married that October.

Our son Ambrose was born 10 months later, the first grandkid to his dad's parents, the 13th grandkid to his mom's.  Then 18 months after Ambrose, Dulicinea came along.  Do to complications with the placenta, Dulcinea had to be delivered 5 weeks early by C-section, followed by a hysterechtomy.

Dulcinea was so tiny and beautiful and strong, and we are so thankful that God preserved her life.  But it was a hard blow to not be able to have any more biological kids.  Adoption has always been on our hearts, but we had thought it would come later in our lives.  It appears that God's plan is for us to pursue this path now.

Ambrose and Dulcinea are very excited about the idea of growing our family through adoption.  They pray for the child, and ask others to pray.  We have a huge extended family and a great community  of church friends, drama friends, reenacting friends, and friends we knew from home school activities.  They are all excited to welcome another little friend into their lives.

We met in October 2019 at a trivia night in small town in central Texas. Zoë’s best friend from college happened to invite Ben out to trivia that evening, and Zoë and Ben instantly hit it off. We grew closer in our friendship over the Fall months and in January of 2020 we went on our first date. From that January date to go rock climbing we have basically been inseparable. We have now been married for 3.5 years and love each other more each day.

Right after we started dating, the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the world. We both experienced interruptions to our jobs, social lives, and families. Although the world was forced into isolation, God knew that we were destined to be together and used that time to show us all the different kinds of challenges we can overcome together. We believe that these difficulties early on drew us closer to each other and to the Lord and helped us build a firm foundation for our relationship. We can do anything with the Lord.

Ben is currently working as a software developer and Zoë is a music teacher in several local school districts. We both enjoy playing music together in our free time and spending time with our wonderful church family. We also LOVE to travel all over the place! We are both very active and enjoy hiking, biking, rock climbing, dancing, gardening, disc golf, you name it! Our relationship is full of the joy of the Lord, and we can't wait to share that joy with a child someday.

We have always felt called to adopt, and passionate that families can be defined by LOVE as well as biology. We are grateful to be considered as you make such a loving decision for your baby. 

*Links to our Instagram and Profile Book are in the "Letter" Section* =)

"Adventure is out there!" UP is our favorite movie. It would be awesome to talk more with you and see if you'd like to go on this adventure together!