Our Family

We have a great family. We love to be together,  play and learn together.

As we’ve worked through the adoption process it’s been interesting to hear the perspective of our two young sons. Each of them have told me on separate occasions not only of their excitement and anticipation in having another sibling, but also their feeling that the child we adopt will be lucky to be in our family because, "we have a great family and we love each other." I love hearing that because it means that our children feel loved and fortunate.

Julia

This is what I love. First and foremost our family:  I love my husband and our sweet sons. We have a great family. We truly love and enjoy each other. We want to adopt because we feel strongly that there is another child for our family. We have felt this for years. But it’s less that we feel a lack in our lives, and more that we are aware of an even more glorious possibility. There is room for more joy.

I love my extended family—parents, siblings, in-laws, nieces and nephews. My entire family lives within a twenty-minute drive. We all gradually moved to Arizona to live close to each other. We get together for birthdays, holidays, to play games and to celebrate each other’s milestones and triumphs. We go on trips together, go camping, and have fun on the lake. There are cousins ranging from eighteen to three-weeks old. My kids love their cousins. I feel blessed to have my family so close.

I love to run. I started running at fifteen because I was terrible at it. I suspected that I should be able to run once around the track without feeling like I would die. I signed up for the hardest P.E. class in our high school and discovered a new love. Now I run almost every day. I don’t run particularly far or fast, but it makes me truly happy. I love to run outdoors in the sunshine. When my kids were small, I’d put them in our jogging stroller and we’d feed carrots to the horses we’d pass en route and count the hummingbirds.

I love books. I don’t remember a time when I haven’t loved books. They make my life richer, deeper and better in every way. I love to have a fatness of books. Stacks of books I look forward to reading. As a busy mom, it’s harder to find time to read. On solitary runs, I listen to audiobooks. I tuck myself into bed at night with a good book. I have a book club that I love, with friends that I love. If you like to read, let’s talk about books.

Goofing off at the Matisse exhibit in San Antonio

I love art. I particularly love paintings and sculpture. Seeing good art makes me feel joyful and inspired. When the local art museum has a good show, we go as a family. When we travel, whether to Paris or San Antonio, we typically make time to visit their best art museums. These memories are very precious to me. I took drawing classes as a child, and entered art contests in high school. Recently I carved out a little time to start painting again. I took an oil painting class with my mom and my sister. I loved it.

I love spending time with my kids. I’m always looking for something fun and interesting to do with them. We do all sorts of things together, visit aquariums, zoos, museums, and outdoor festivals. We go bowling with friends, plan swim parties, and movie outings. I research what is going on, and we have a blast deciding what we want to do. I feel blessed to have the freedom to spend this precious time with our kids.

Just the facts about Julia: I lived on the East Coast until I was thirteen, then my family moved to Northern California. I went to BYU and studied English Literature, which I loved. I took a lot of honors classes, which were frequently my favorite courses because they had the best teachers and the smallest class sizes. I worked in high-tech marketing and PR. My favorite job, by far, was working at Nike's headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon while my husband went to law school. For five years I had my own marketing and PR business until I was eight months pregnant with my first child. Since then, I have been a stay-at-home mom. I am grateful to be home with my kids, and I savor my time with them.

Brent 

Brent is an interesting and unusual mix of many good things. One of the things I really like about him is that he is a very cultured, gentlemanly man but is also very masculine. These two things seem like they are hard to find together, and I think it sets a wonderful example for our boys.

Brent is well-read and articulate. He’ll gladly take me museums and plays and discuss current events with me, but he also is an accomplished outdoorsman who loves to camp, hike, bike and fish and do just about anything else outdoors. He also works out regularly and takes care of his health.

I really appreciate that Brent is such an honorable man. I absolutely trust him. He is honest with me and treats both me and our kids with respect. I feel safe with him, and I know that he would do anything for his family. I also appreciate that he works hard to support us financially, and that he sacrifices to give me the freedom to be home with our kids.

I love that Brent is such a wonderful dad. We had a really hard time having kids, and I think we appreciate our children more because of this. Brent really enjoys doing things with our children. He does a special activity with them at least once every weekend, and he listens to them and is thoughtful about helping each of them become their best self.

Brent also appreciates good food. He loves breakfast, as I’ve mentioned before, but he is also a master griller. He makes the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner and takes great pride in it turning out perfectly. He takes mashed potatoes very seriously. He also makes awesome cookies. He makes raisin-nut cookies from his Grandma’s secret recipe. I don’t know if his Grandma considered it a secret, but Brent certainly does. He also really appreciates it when I’ve made something delicious for dinner.

Brent comes from a large and supportive family. He is the youngest of six kids, and he stays close to his extended family. Every year we go to a family reunion that’s attended by about 130 family members. Our kids love it and look forward to their time playing with cousins. All of his family is supportive about our hopes to adopt.

Just the facts about Brent: Brent lived in the Washington D.C. area as a child, and moved to Bountiful, Utah at thirteen. He is the youngest of six siblings. He studied English at Brigham Young University, and earned his law degree from Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. After working for the county government, as well as several law firms, Brent opened his own law practice more that eight years ago. A dedicated attorney during the week, you'll find Brent on the weekends fishing, camping, dirt biking, hiking, or finding some other way to be manly outdoors. (When he reads this sentence I am sure he will change it, so if you're lucky enough to happen upon it first, enjoy!)

John

Our first son, John, has a smile full of sunshine. He is smart and fun with a great sense of humor and a love for physical activity and play.

He is a great older brother. John is responsible and is tender and sweet to Adam. This year at Christmas, both boys were more concerned about what gifts they gave each other than what they were getting themselves. Brent and I watched this very loving present exchange between them before any other gifts were opened. 

He loves to engineer things. He designs intricate paper airplanes, and makes complex Lego creations. He loves playing with friends in our neighborhood. This year he has been busy playing basketball and flag football. He is also in cub scouts and just started piano lessons--which he loves. 

Adam
Our younger son, Adam, is the personification of love. I have a picture of cupid hanging in my house. This picture—painted well over a hundred years ago—is the exact image of Adam at two years old. Adam is the most loving and generous person I have ever met at any age. At Christmas this year he was insistent that he wanted to tape all of his allowance to the top of his brother's present. 

Adam is creative and loves art, music, and books. He loves to design things with Legos and to develop his own games, which he likes to play as a family. He has always been interested in music. Last year he sang in the children’s choir for a fantastic choir group. Hearing both our sons sing in their Christmas program last year was one of the highlights for me of being a mom. He is currently in his third year of the “Let’s Play Music” program. He loves one-on-one time and being snuggled. He also loves books and knows all about sea creatures.

He is just finishing up his flag football season. He takes music lessons and is just starting karate.