Hello! Thank you for taking the time to learn more about us! We are Tim, Steph, and our pup Radar. We are so excited about the possibility of expanding our family and sharing our love with a child someday.
We met on a popular dating app and started dating in 2019. We got married on New Year’s Eve in 2021, as our relationship deepened and blossomed during the global pandemic. The year 2020 is when our ongoing family motto came to be: We Stick Together. No matter how crazy the world can get, we know that no matter what, we have each other, and we stick together.
Steph is a communications professional at a major university who loves music, playing the drums, and going to concerts. Tim is a skilled woodworker and leatherworker, starting his own business in our small but diverse town, with a storefront walkable from our home. He has a background in manufacturing engineering.
A unique fact about us is that we have a very elaborate secret handshake. We use this secret handshake to celebrate all kinds of wins in life, and also randomly just to have fun! We love to make each other laugh and support each other in all that we do in life.
We have built an awesome life together, and we feel blessed to have the opportunity to someday share this with a baby. We love to take joy in the simple things in life—a walk to the coffee shop where we can say hello to our friends and neighbors, walking to the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings, family dinners, and walking Radar around town. On any given Friday, you’ll find the three of us piled up onto our giant bean bag in the living room for a family movie night.
In addition to woodworking and leatherworking, Tim is a skilled target shooter and does competitions at the local club, where he puts safety first and foremost. Tim is also the most wanted player on anyone’s local trivia night team, and has a reputation for knowing tons of historical facts across a wide range of topics. In addition, Tim always has a good joke to tell.
Steph loves to go to the gym to do strength training twice a week, loves music, and collecting vinyl records. Stand-up paddleboarding on the river in the summer months—just a few blocks from home—is her favorite thing to do, and she loves riding her bike up and down the river every week in the warmer months as well. She loves to take her nieces as passengers on her stand-up paddleboard, and looks forward to doing this with a little one in the future, among other fun outdoor activities!
As a family, we love to play chess on the giant chess board with the pieces Tim created, and we love to go on hikes and enjoy nature at the state park a few minutes from our house. In addition, we enjoy the many diverse festivals and community events that are walkable from our home, which are held almost every single weekend, including Pride and Juneteenth. We love family movie and pizza nights, going out for ice cream, and spending quality time together!
After we got married, Steph discovered she had an autoimmune disorder that impacted her thyroid function and her fertility. After undergoing surgery to remove her thyroid and then experiencing a pregnancy loss and continued fertility challenges after surgery, we decided together that adoption was right for us; however, Steph has always wanted to adopt since she was a kid herself—it’s meant to be!
When I first met Tim, I was immediately drawn to his sense of humor and his intelligence. Tim is the king of telling jokes, and he is always ready to make people laugh. Tim knows so much about so many things; he is the smartest person I know.
Tim cares about family above all, and he is driven to make the world a better place through his work. Tim is incredibly talented— he can build or make anything he puts his mind to, and I love that this is something that was instilled in him through his grandma, grandpa, and also his dad.
Above all, Tim is patient, kind, loyal, and the most thoughtful person I know. The first time he met my mom, he hand crafted the most beautiful wooden candle holders for her and my stepdad with layered pieces of beautiful wood. They were really touched, and so was I! For our first-ever Valentine’s Day together, he made me a delicious pizza with pepperoni pieces cut out in hearts. He has been there for me in the toughest moments of my life, giving me patience and love, and his love makes me stronger. With Tim, I always feel safe, supported, and above all, loved.
Tim makes delicious dinners almost every night, he’s a pizza expert, and he finds ways to make life easier for everyone around him. When you need him—Tim is always there for you. He is a wonderful uncle to his nieces and nephews, always willing to do a lego activity or game on the floor, and he will be a fantastic dad!
Steph is the kindest, sweetest, most loyal, and passionate person I have ever met.
She is a hard worker, working full-time as well as volunteering to support various non-profits in town. She is a member of the county Health and Human Relations Commission, as well.
She treats everyone around her, including animals and wildlife, with dignity and care. She won’t kill a spider or stinkbug that finds it way inside and insists that I take them outside and release them gently.
She absolutely spoils her nieces, taking them on shopping trips and buying them ice cream and candy. I, too, am spoiled by having her in my life. She loves her family and always makes the effort to visit them, and to host them from out of town. If you see the way she treats our nieces and other kids in our family, our friends’ kids, and our dog, you’d know she’s going to be the most amazing mom. I can never be grateful enough for the thousand little ways she makes my life easier.
We are blessed to have a strong support system, both near and far! Tim’s parents live close by, and we see them at least once a week for family dinners, lunches, and spending time together. They are so excited to welcome a first grandchild someday and will provide so much love and adventure in their trail-laden property! Tim’s brother and sister-in-law live in NYC, and they visit several times a year as well. We are all very close.
Steph’s family members love to come and visit several times a year and share FaceTime calls. Her nieces love to visit and go shopping at the local boutiques. We like to travel back to Pennsylvania to visit family and friends a few times a year, as well. Some of Steph’s closest friends are her sister Kathy and her stepmom Kelly, and she talks to her mom and dad every week.
Our neighbors across the street are close friends as well. Radar’s BFF, a worker from his shelter days, is now his dog walker whenever we need extra help!
We feel really lucky to live in a small, surprisingly diverse, tight-knit community that values music, culture, and its rich history. We specifically moved two years ago to be closer to Tim’s family and to raise a child here.
Steph volunteers to provide the marketing and social media for the annual Pride Celebration, and she loves to support the diverse LGBTQ+ community. She volunteers to do the same for the local Juneteenth celebration too. Steph loves to contribute to the wellbeing of all neighbors.
Tim is opening a woodworking and leatherworking business a few blocks away from our home, where he will also serve as the building manager for eventual tenants of additional shop spaces. The historic building is being renovated, and he is overseeing the project, which will have a positive impact on the community! He can make just about anything; he even created a beautiful new clothing dresser for Steph this year, complete with cut out heart handles. Tim already has a small chair and activity table designed to build for a child to use someday, along with plans for a changing table and Montessori changing area. He builds everything with precision, love, and care.
Our small town is a truly magical place—we are close with our neighbors and have made lots of friends in the past couple of years. Every weekend, there is something fun to do for the whole family, whether it’s a bluegrass music fest, arts fest, fall festival with music, stews and chili, a holiday tour, and so much more. The library is less than a block away from our home, the middle school is two blocks away, and we love to walk to our favorite restaurants to meet up with family members and friends for a meal nearby. We can’t wait to utilize the playground that’s a block away someday, and we look forward to family walks by the river with a child, too.
We are so excited to become parents one day. Above all, we aim to model and teach kindness—toward oneself and others—so every child can grow into their full, authentic self.
By educating ourselves about effective and compassionate ways to raise an adopted child, we believe in discipline that utilizes time-ins instead of time-outs. We will show a child love and respect by always coming alongside them as they learn to regulate their own emotions. We will create family policies that allow a child to have options and choices, and we feel this will minimize power struggles. In our discipline and parenting, we will always try to emphasize the importance of feeling our feelings, processing our emotions, and open conversation. If it’s shareable, it is bearable! Our biggest parenting priority is creating an environment where a child can always come to us to discuss their feelings openly and freely—whether they are happy, sad, or processing feelings of grief and loss around their adoption. It’s all on the table for discussion; we will be their safe space, and we will be a team! We stick together.
We are so lucky that our work situations will allow us to be the sole caregivers of a child one day. Tim is self-employed, and Steph works from home a few days a week with an accommodating and supportive boss. We are so excited that we have this flexibility and opportunity to be there for a child seven days a week, without the need for daycare.
Diversity is important to us. We are well-connected with the LGBTQIA+ community, which is prominent in our small town, and we are connected with the black community through Steph’s volunteer work with Juneteenth. If we are blessed with a child of a different race, we will go above and beyond to connect them with their heritage and their community. In addition, we don’t live far from a major city where there are additional connections to culture as well.
We love family traditions! Steph learned how to make pies when we were on lockdown during COVID and unable to travel for Thanksgiving. She used Tim’s grandma’s recipe book, and the next year, she learned how to improve her technique while making them alongside Tim’s mom! Now, making pies together for Thanksgiving is something we love to do with Tim’s family. (Tim’s favorite is apple pie, and Steph’s favorite is pecan pie!)
Every holiday season, our small town hosts a “Who-ville” day, where there are reindeer to pet, food trucks, bouncy houses for kids, and the Grinch walks around town handing out cookies at different shops. It’s super fun, and we love to go celebrate with our neighbors.
Every Christmas Eve, we watch Die Hard! Yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie! (Although it is certainly not kid-friendly!) We love to get cozy after a Christmas Eve meal and watch this hilarious action movie with the Christmas tree lit nearby.
When Steph was a child, her favorite tradition was leaving a bucket of water and carrots outside on the front doorstep for Santa’s reindeer to have a treat during their stop—in addition to leaving cookies and milk out for Santa near the fireplace. On Christmas morning, there’d be glitter on the sidewalk where the reindeer came for a drink and the carrots would be half eaten and mostly gone! We can’t wait to share the magic of Christmas with a child and bring this tradition back.
Tim’s favorite childhood tradition was the Birthday Tree. The day before your birthday, you’d get to go out to the yard and pick out a “birthday tree,” which was usually just a stick or branch. Then you’d go inside and put it in a big glass bottle. Everyone would help decorate it with balloons or paper cut out in the shape of ornaments. The next day, there would be birthday presents from the family under the tree. We are excited to bring this tradition back too!
We love traditions that involve fur babies, too. We got Radar from the animal shelter on Valentine’s Day weekend of 2025, so we will be celebrating Radar’s birthday every year on that weekend from here on out—he’s our little sweetie!
Thank you so much for taking the time to learn more about us. It truly means the world. Our number one rule is that “we stick together,” and we hold that value close in every part of our lives. We genuinely look forward to the day we’re able to share that sense of love, support, and togetherness with a child.
More than anything, we want a child to grow up with a strong, steady foundation—one built on honesty, compassion, and openness. We understand that the level of connection a birth family wants can change over time, depending on life, comfort, and boundaries, and we want you to know we will always respect that. We respect your journey and the choices that are right for you.
