Kelly & Mike

We have chosen to adopt because we want to give the love that we have stored up in our hearts for a new member of our family. We want to be parents and to provide everything we can for the love of a child. We're looking forward to all the steps along the way of developing this little miracle into the best person possible. We're excited about soccer or dance classes, school plays, and homework, or any of the things that we can provide to encourage our child's growth and development. We have a hard time imagining not ever having our own child to love, teach, pass traditions to, and to raise to be moral and kind. We have no instances of adoption within our families, but both of our families are extremely excited about having a new member to love. We have been wanting to start a family for about 12 years. We have tried pretty much every fancy artificial method that's out there. Doctors are unable to give any specific reason why none of them worked. We have come to the realization that having all those surgeries and taking all the pills and shots just wasn't the way for us to grow our family. Without someone as selfless and brave as yourself, we would never have the ability to make the vision of our having a family become a reality.

Most of our travels involve us visiting family, but we have had the opportunity to see Chicago (our honeymoon), Denver, New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Nashville. We would both love to see Italy and France someday. We like playing games (with friends and family), going to concerts, trying new restaurants, playing with our dog, watching Houston Astros games, and spending time with our families. Kelly likes to cook and has a knack for trying recipes for the first time and having them turn out perfect! Having a child helping us out in the kitchen would be so much fun. We can smell the cookies now! Mike is a huge pop culture trivia fan, specializing in 80's movies and music. He likes following sports, playing poker, and doing various types of word puzzles. He thinks that it would be fun to learn to play an instrument at the same time as his child learns it and to have that common.

Every Christmas Eve, we get together with Kelly's family and begin preparing food for dinner and late-night snacking. Late in the afternoon we stop, and we all get ready for church. After 5:00 Mass, we come back home and race in the house to see who can be the first to put baby Jesus in the Nativity Scene. While a few more family members arrive, we get all the food set up. After all the presents are opened, we eat, laugh, joke, and just enjoy the time together. Once we're done eating and the leftovers are put away, we sit around the table and play cards or board games late into the night while the kids play with whatever new toys they got. The next day, we go to Mike's parent's house and spend Christmas day with his side of the family. Most years his Mom has made a giant homemade lasagna. There are cookies and snacks all over the table and counter that we enjoy throughout the day (lemon squares and Chex Mix are two of the favorites). We gather in the family room to open presents. Mike's parents' tree has many ornaments on it that make noise or play music, and we inevitably try to see how many we can get to play at once. Their tree is on a rotating stand, and it's fun to see your favorite childhood ornaments cycle around the tree. Christmas evening also usually ends with us sitting around playing games.

We have a beagle-pug mix (called a puggle) named CoCo. She's the only pet Mike has ever had, but Kelly grew up with various dogs as well as some farm animals. We love CoCo very much and is a source of constant entertainment. She is excellent around other people of all ages. We couldn't ask for a companion with better personality and temperament. (Yes, we talk to her like she's human.)

We live in a newly built 4-bedroom, 4.5 bath home in a developing subdivision in an excellent school district, with a new elementary school about 1 mile from our house, so there are lots of kids in the neighborhood. Just outside of our backyard fence is an open space with walking trails and a pond, and the backyard itself is big enough for a pool. From our front yard we can see the subdivision's clubhouse, which has a pool, splash pad, playground, and other amenities. One of Mike's favorite spots in the house is the media room. It's going to be the perfect place to have family movie night and to watch all the Disney movies. We also really enjoy the large game room which leads out to a second-floor balcony that overlooks the water view. Just outside of our backyard fence is an open space with walking trails and a pond, and the backyard itself is big enough for a pool.