Elizabeth's strength as an individual is compassion and planning capability. When a stressful event comes up, Elizabeth can plan for what might happen in most any circumstance. Her compassion comes out when she tries to help anyone if she is able to. From bringing donated food to her co-workers from a church event each week to helping do shopping for families in the cul-de-sac during the shutdown as families couldn't take their children with them. Planning for the future is what she thrives in doing.

Some of Jason's strengths are his calmness and ability to break things down and take one thing at a time. When something unexpected pops up at work or when something breaks around the house, Jason has an ability to remain calm to assess the situation and come up with a proper solution. That calmness and mindset also helps us as a family when we encounter stressful times. Being able to take a step back and realize you can only control what you can control and to take things one step as a time helps us navigate any situation.

We have many hobbies and activities that we share together. We both love to travel, especially road trips. During our road trips, we enjoy visiting national parks, monuments, museums, and shopping areas. We also like to take cruises to see exotic beaches and tropical cities. Traveling is important to us and something we want to do a lot with a child. There are so many fun, interesting places to see and we want to share those.

At home, we both enjoy gardening in our raised garden bed. We love growing different fruits and vegetables as they always taste better home grown. When we are not outside, we share a handful of TV shows that we enjoy watching together.

Elizabeth also loves to shop and find deals at thrift stores. Often, she is recruited by her friends to find a deal on something they're looking for and she almost always delivers. Another relaxing hobby Elizabeth has is to color. Between physical books and digital ones, she is often coloring different patterns and pictures.

Jason enjoys playing video games in his spare time. It gives him a chance to be social with friends and other people he has met online. He has mixed his hobby of video games and his skills from work to develop a mobile app for a gaming organization to help raise money for St. Jude Research Hospital and they have raised over $10 million dollars the past few years.

Each of us has brought different family traditions together and have formed our own over the years. These traditions are very important to us and is what shapes our family and makes us unique. Over the course of the year we have fairly standard traditions from getting together with family members to celebrate birthdays to decorating our home for the different holidays.

We have a couple of longstanding traditions during the holidays. In October, we get together with our friends we've had since high school and have a potluck and carve pumpkins. The past few years our friends' kids have gotten involved and it has been a really fun time.

Similarly, in December, we get together to build gingerbread houses. We've accumulated so many different types of candy, we have to store them in a huge box every year. It is a fun way to get together with friends to celebrate the holidays.

Recently in our new home, we've started some traditions with our neighbors in our cul-de-sac from having outdoors summer parties to firework displays with the kids. We can't wait to share and even create new traditions like these with a child.

We built our dream home in 2018 in a quiet neighborhood located in a suburb of Kansas City. Our home was built with the future in mind and includes 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths. One of our rooms is currently set up as a playroom where our friends' kids come over to play quite often. Our place is often used to host friends and family because of the open floorplan and ample space to house everyone. We love sitting on our front porch or deck watching animals roam around the pond that is near us.

Our neighborhood is filled with families our age and there are even 13 kids on our street alone with most of them under the age of 5. Every evening they are out playing with each other on playsets or riding bikes. We love seeing kids outside being kids. Our neighbors are all very close, and we are always out hanging out with each other just to chat or to celebrate birthdays and holidays. We are truly fortunate to live in such a wonderful place.

The subdivision we live in also has a pool and walking trails for everyone to use. We often use the walking trails to take our dogs for a walk and enjoy the natural greenspace in the area. During the spring and summer, we take part in multiple block parties and food trucks that are brought in throughout the season.

Our families are integral parts of our lives and are beyond excited for us in this journey. Elizabeth comes from a medium sized family, with one sibling and several close cousins, aunts and uncles living around us. We see them several times a year at gatherings for celebrating birthdays. They also are there to help with life changes, like when we moved into both our homes and had to repaint our previous home. A big change for Elizabeth was becoming an aunt for the first time 7 years ago. She thoroughly relishes spoiling her nieces any chance she gets.

Jason comes from a smaller family, with no siblings and just one cousin. Though we don't see them as much, we keep in touch through social media, cards, phone calls, and always get together during the holidays. We've been able to visit his grandmother in Arkansas a couple times and would love to take a child there some day as she has a lot of land and a couple of horses.

We also have a close group of friends who have been with us since before high school. We've been a part of all their weddings, moves to new houses and children being born. Many of these friends live close to us and we see them in events at each other's houses. Watching the kids grow up together will be even more special with this child.

We are beyond excited to get the chance to learn about your family and welcome you into ours. Choosing someone else to raise your child is the hardest decision we can think someone could make and are humbled to be considered as adoptive parents. We understand it is an extremely difficult and emotional time right now. Please know that we support you and your family during this process.

Knowing this process can be difficult, we want you to know that we will be as open as we can to make it as comfortable as possible for everyone. We are a couple that don't make big demands on those around us, are extremely flexible, and also are willing to help others when we can. Whether that be traveling to meet you before adoption or doing video calls we are open to it. In the end, we just want you to be as comfortable as you can during this journey.

We have been a couple for 18 years now; dating for 8 years before getting married in 2010. We met while still in high school and dated all through college, saving money to move out on our own. After we bought our first house and fixed it up, we lived there for 10 years. We began our family by getting our two dogs in 2008; they are brothers from the same litter. As time went by, we wanted to start a family and tried surrogacy with a friend of Elizabeth's offering to carry a child for us. After two attempts at that, and both not working out, we decided to take a break and focus on building our dream home. We moved into this home in March 2018 with more than enough room to grow a family. After grieving the surrogacy, we took time off and just enjoyed life before starting our adoption journey. We feel we have been led down this path for a reason. We are more able to care for a child and now, we have a house ready to welcome a baby, and friends and family that are ready to love our baby. If we are chosen by you, our friends and family would also welcome you into our family as they are excited to see us expand our family.

Raising a child is something we take very seriously. We are lucky to be in a position to be able to provide a nice house in a terrific neighborhood, be financially stable, and have the family and friends to help us along the way. We will raise a child to be independent and encourage them to pursue their interests that appeal to them as they grow up. Family is extremely important to us and your child will always have a loving, supportive home with us and we will always be there for them.

We want your child to know how much love you have for him or her. We will make a book featuring pictures and information about your family for your child to have as a keepsake in learning about other people that love them just as much as we do. You will always be an integral part of your child's life. It is extremely important your child understands their complete background as they grow up. We are open to emails, calls, and visits if you would like that. However, we want you to be comfortable and understand if you would rather just have pictures and letters sent to you, so you can see your child grow.

Thank you again for taking the time to read our profile and learn a little bit about us. We know you want the best for your child and your courage is inspiring to us. No matter which path you take, we wish you the best as you continue down this journey.

Jason & Elizabeth