Dear Friend,
Hi and thank you for looking at our family!! We’re excited to share a little bit of our fun family with you.
We are Ryan and Aubrey. We have been married for 9 years. We have a 5 year old (biological) daughter named Hailey. She is the light of our lives and we love spending time together as a family. We also have cute little puppy named Daisy.
Aubrey was born and raised in Southern Colorado. She is the oldest of 4 kids – one brother and 2 sisters. In high school, she was very involved in theater and choir, and even served as honor choir president during her senior year. She earned an Associate of Science from Utah Valley State College in Paralegal Studies. Family is very important to her. She likes to plan vacations and travel. We have traveled to San Diego and Orlando for a couple of our fun family vacations and Aubrey made the most of them by planning and doing research. Among her many hobbies, scrapbooking and reading are at the top. Her favorite books (of the moment) are The Hunger Games series, the Vampire Academy series, The Help and The Book Theif. She is really into digital scrapbooking. When we went to DisneyWorld last year, we got autographs and pictures with all of Hailey's favorite characters. For Christmas, Aubrey made an autograph scrapbook with all of the autographs and pictures scanned into the computer. She is a perfectionist, so it takes a long time to finish a scrapbooking project, but she LOVES to show them off. She can't wait to make a scrapbook for the new baby and share it with everyone (including you!) Currently she is a stay-at-home mom to 5-year-old Hailey, and loves every minute.
Ryan was born and raised in Orem, Utah, 40 miles south of Salt Lake City. Ryan is the youngest of 5 children, 3 brothers and 1 sister. Ryan earned a Bachelors of Science in IT from Brigham Young University, and a Master in Business Administration from the University of Utah. Ryan likes playing and watching sports (basketball, football, golf), doing puzzles (Eric Dowdle and Thomas Kinkade are his favorites), gardening, cooking with the Dutch ovens (especially trying new recipes) and spending time with the family. Ryan currently works at a terrific company in Salt Lake City doing IT administration.
Hailey is done with preschool and will soon begin Kindergarten. She is most excited about riding the bus. She is so much fun and so full of energy. She loves visiting and playing with her friends and family, including grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. She has a special relationship with all 4 of her grandparents and they, of course love to spoil her! Hailey can’t wait to have a sibling. When we spoke with Hailey about adoption, she insisted that each time we pray, we pray for ‘a baby brother and baby sister’. She is adorable and so excited to be a big sister!
Daisy is an 18 month Shih Poo (Shih Tzu and Poodle mix) and has been a wonderful addition to the family. She is very small, 6 lbs and not expected to get much bigger. She enjoys playing as well as to relax and be petted. She is very good around kids and a great playmate for Hailey. She is patient, even when riding around in the basket of Hailey’s bike.
Daisy is an 18 month Shih Poo (Shih Tzu and Poodle mix) and has been a wonderful addition to the family. She is very small, 6 lbs and not expected to get much bigger. She enjoys playing as well as to relax and be petted. She is very good around kids and a great playmate for Hailey. She is patient, even when riding around in the basket of Hailey’s bike.
We have a lot of fun together as a family. About once a week we will have family movie night, where we get pizza and have a picnic on the living room floor and watch a movie. We spread out a big pink comforter on the floor, order pizza (usually Domino's), close all the blinds and sit together and watch a fun movie. Daisy even gets in on the fun! We also like to go for walks around the neighborhood, go to the nearby dinosaur museum, farm, gardens, and water park. We get a yearly pass to Thanksgiving Point and we go there quite a bit. We LOVE the gardens in the summer and the dinosaur museum all year round!! We’ve recently gotten our bikes out of the back of the garage to ride. We also bought a bike trailer with room for Hailey and the new baby! Ryan and Hailey have recently begun playing chess, which consists of playing house with the chess pieces (the pawns are becoming good at horseback riding). We go on a family vacation each year. Every other year, we try to do a BIG vacation, and the other years we do a “stay-cation” where we can explore some of the hidden gems around our own home. Some of the fun places we have gone to are Disney World, San Diego, Las Vegas and Seattle.
Education is very important to both of us. We have an educational fund set up for Hailey, and will for all our children. She went to the best preschool we could find (where she began learning to read), and is excited for kindergarten. We read together every day, and she will sometimes read to her stuffed animals.
We currently live in Lehi, UT, 30 miles south of Salt Lake City. We have lived here for 6 years. It’s a great place to live. Our neighborhood is full of young couples with children for Hailey to play with. We have a fenced yard for the kids to play in and live just down the street from a two parks. There are several families in the neighborhood (including one of Hailey’s best friends) who have adopted children. This has greatly helped Hailey understand what adoption is.
We have struggled with infertility our whole married lives. It took us 2 years to get pregnant with our precious Hailey. We have been struggling to get pregnant to give her a sibling for 4 years. It has been very difficult to not be able to do so. We love Hailey and our family so much and want to add to it. After a lot of prayer, thought, discussion and research, we have felt that adoption is the right path for us to add to our family. Our families are all supportive and happy for us in this decision. We have thrown ourselves into the adoption world and have learned a lot from the families we know who have adopted. We are so grateful to the birth mothers we have come to know and what we have learned.
We want you to know that we understand that you are going through a very difficult time. We also want you to know that we think about you and pray for you every day. Placing a child for adoption is a very difficult decision. We are so grateful that you took the time to get to know our family, and would be happy to answer any more questions you may have. We admire you for considering adoption and wish you lots of love in whatever path you choose for yourself and your baby.
Thank you,
Ryan, Aubrey and Hailey (and Daisy!)
