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Hello and thank you for taking the time to get to know us a little bit! We are Ryan and Anna, and we have been married for 12 years. We are each other’s biggest supporters and love life together. Ryan works in IT and Anna is a part-time piano teacher. We have two amazing boys that joined our family through adoption. Elijah is 8 years old and is energetic, curious, and genuinely interested in learning about anything! He’s happiest exploring the outdoors or building with legos. Judah is 6 and is the sweetest kid. He loves cars and trucks and gives the best hugs. We also have a friendly Australian shepherd named Sasha. Family life is always an adventure! Our free time is filled with neighborhood bike rides and going to the park with friends, as well as bigger road trips to new places. We love celebrating the little things in life! We are excited to be on this journey and have so much love to share with a new little one.
We met in 2008 through Ryan’s twin sisters. Anna was already friends with them and they would invite both of us over for dinner or game nights along with other friends. When Ryan asked them what they would think about him being interested in one of their friends, they said, “Why do you think we keep inviting you both over together!” We got married in 2011 and our love has continued to grow. Some of our favorite times together have been doing house projects late into the night, going to state parks (especially to look for waterfalls!), and finding new restaurants to try downtown. Our faith is important to us, and helped us get through some difficult years of infertility. We’ve grown a lot together in good times and in challenges.
We feel so honored to be parents to Elijah and Judah and thank God for them every day. Elijah is creative and full of ideas. He likes to take things apart to figure out how they work and then will put things back together in a new way. He loves animals and wants to have a farm when he grows up. He is very outgoing and makes new friends easily. Judah is more shy, but will talk your ear off once you get to know him. He is silly and sweet and loves to use his imagination when playing with his friends and cousins. While Elijah and Judah do get into fights sometimes, they resolve arguments pretty quickly and start laughing about the whole thing. Both of them are so eager to welcome a baby into the family and have big plans to read books to and share toys with the baby.
Ryan is the rock of our family, and we all love him to pieces. When we first met, I was drawn to his caring heart and quiet strength. He works hard and is trustworthy and reliable. He often helps friends and neighbors out with things, and serves in different ways at church. Ryan also makes me laugh every day and is really fun to be around! He has a lot of interests from snowboarding (which doesn’t happen too much anymore), to disc golf, and history. He enjoys learning new things and has figured out how to fix and build things for our house from YouTube! He’s pretty adventurous and used to have a motorcycle, but sold it to buy a riding lawn mower – a true dad moment. Ha! Ryan is a very involved and patient dad and has been from the beginning. Whether it was night-time feedings when Elijah and Judah were babies, to taking them fishing or to soccer practice these days, he’s a very dedicated father and genuinely loves spending time with them. The boys say he’s totally the best.
Anna is the love of my life and has won the “Best Mom Ever” award for the last eight years in a row, at least according to me and our boys. Anna is patient, caring, sweet, and thoughtful. Anna is always putting others first and regularly looks for ways to help out. She particularly puts our boys’ needs before her own needs and is always doing things to make them feel special and loved. She stays up way too late before each of their birthdays blowing up balloons, hanging decorations, wrapping extra presents, etc. to make sure they have a wonderful birthday. Elijah and Judah also do fun things with her while I’m at work, and I’m a bit jealous sometimes! When they don’t have school, they often spend the day at the park, or end up getting very muddy on a hike, and the boys love these little adventures. Anna plays clarinet and piano beautifully, and we love having live music at home. Anna also teaches music lessons, and I enjoy getting to hear her enthusiasm and encouragement while she teaches her students while I occasionally work from home. Anna’s heart for Jesus is contagious, and she is an amazing woman. I’m so glad to be raising our children along-side her.
Family is the most important thing to us, and we prioritize time with each other. We often say, “Our favorite place to be is together,” and we mean it! We have loved big family adventures like a trip we took to the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore last summer, but we also love just sitting on our porch swing reading books. On weekends Elijah and Judah like to build Hot Wheels tracks through the whole house to race cars or design elaborate lego creations. If Anna starts baking something, Judah is right there to help. If Ryan gets out his tools to work on something, both boys come running to ask a million questions about what he’s doing (which he is happy to answer!) and see if they can work along with him. Sometimes on weekends we’ll take day trips to a museum or go to a local creek to search for geodes.
Many of our friends have kids the same ages as our boys so we enjoy getting together for dinner or meeting up at the playground. We’ve also made some great memories on camping weekends and trips to the pumpkin patch with friends!
We each come from a family with 5 kids and love the chaos and fun of family gatherings! There’s always lots of food involved, card games, and laughter. All of our siblings live in Indiana, which means Elijah and Judah get to see their cousins regularly. When Anna’s mom visits, she always brings something fun to do with the boys, like an art project or flowers to plant in the yard. We have an annual summer trip to Lake Michigan with Anna’s extended family, which includes playing at the beach, hiking, and going out for ice cream every night.
Becoming parents through adoption has been our greatest joy and privilege. We’re not perfect, but we try to be intentional parents, loving our children unconditionally, and encouraging them in their interests. We believe you can learn a lot through curiosity and creativity and we like to encourage hands-on learning. If they’re having a bad day, we will always be there to listen and offer to do something to cheer them up! We want them to grow up to be responsible, and to love God and others, and we do our best to lead by example in this. We often work together as a family to clean up from dinner or do yard work together. Plus, it’s more fun that way! It’s also important to us to spend time with each child individually. Usually it’s something simple but special, like a “donut date” or going somewhere to watch a local sports game.
Since Anna teaches piano from home, she is able to make her own schedule and hours. We haven’t had to use daycare because of her part-time schedule. We like having the consistency of having at least one parent always available. Our goal is to give our children a stable home where they feel secure, loved, and confident. We want to give them roots, but also encourage them to work hard to pursue their dreams.
We have an open relationship with both Elijah and Judah’s birth families and are blessed to see them throughout the year, as well as send pictures and updates. We talk about adoption regularly, and Elijah and Judah know how much their birth families care about them. They each have an adoption box where they save pictures and special things that remind them of their birth family. We encourage the bond they share with their birth families and know how important it is now and as they grow up.
We recognize how difficult this decision is and sincerely thank you for reading our profile. Our home and hearts are ready for a new baby, and we are so eager to shower a new little one with love and affection! We would welcome an open adoption with you as well, if you are comfortable with that. Thank you for considering us and we wish you the best no matter what.
No updates at this time.
