Announcing Our Upcoming Adoption!

We are so excited to be adopting a little boy in January 2010! Thank you all for your interest and support as we've journeyed down this road of adoption. We have been chosen by a very special birth mom to adopt her baby boy and we can't wait to meet him!

And although we won't be in the adoption pool for a little while, we will be again some day!

Welcome!!

Dear Birth Parents

It is hard to know exactly what to say. The selfless sacrifice that you are now considering for your child is astonishing to us and we have so much love and respect for you. We understand that this must be very overwhelming. We admire your bravery so much and we pray for you daily. We want you to know how special and amazing you are to us. May God guide, direct and most of all comfort you.

Thank you for visiting our blog and getting to know us! Please let us know if there is anything else you want to know about us. We look forward to getting to know you!

Love,
Kirk & Heather

Who We Are

We are Kirk & Heather

Kirk:
Nicknames: Jim and Happy
Age: 33
Height: 6’3”
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Brown
Ancestry: Caucasian- Scandanavian (English, Swedish)
Education: Bachelors in Fine Art, Industrial/Graphic Design
Occupation: Creative Director at a design agency


Heather:
Nicknames: Heathahoney, Boo and Cutie
Age: 29
Height: 5’7”
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blonde
Ancestry: Caucasian- Scandanavian (English, Scottish, Swedish)
Education: Bachelors in Science; Recreation Management
Occupation: Office Manager (Future Homemaker)

Kirk Describes Heather

Heather is one of the most selfless people I know. She is willing to do so much for others. One of the talents Heather has is cooking. She’s great at it. She often makes amazing desserts, cookies, caramel popcorn, peanut butter squares and many other favorites for the neighbors and our family. She’s a people person. She is willing and wants to be everyone’s friend. Heather is a very good athlete. She has a mean tennis serve, a sweet jump shot and a great arm in softball. She more often than not can beat me at most anything. Heather is a girl who likes to have fun. She loves to laugh. She can quote hundreds of one-liners from tons of movies. When she and her family get together it’s like comedy highlight reel. She loves her family so much. There are several nephews and nieces that live close to us. They are very spoiled by Aunt Heather. She loves to play with and baby-sit them every chance she gets. Heather is very creative and has a great sense of style. She picked all the paint colors and decorations for our new house. It looks amazing. She enjoys using her creativity to make cards and scrapbook. She is so great at it that she is a “scrap booking demonstrator”. Her cards are the envy of the neighborhood. Heather has such a great desire to be a mother. She will be one of the best around.

Heather Describes Kirk

[Kirk with our niece]

Kirk has so many great qualities. He is creative, fun, easy-going, hard working, kind, supportive and helpful. He is spiritually strong and is an emotional rock for me. He is hilarious! He always makes people laugh with his witty wise-cracks. He is a big tease and his attitude is contagious. He is the KING of nicknames, and even if you don’t love the nickname he’s given you, you usually don’t mind because you just can’t help but love him. Kirk is very talented. I love to sit by him when he’s designing at home and watch him work. It’s inspiring. He is also very handy around the house; he knows how to fix everything! He is very interested in technology and cars, and is constantly learning all he can about them. He loves to teach others about technology. He gets SO excited whenever I want to learn something new on the computer and I know he will teach our children all about them too. He loves electronic toys and gadgets. I can see him establishing traditions with our children by collecting all kinds of remote controlled devices. At family gatherings, Kirk usually has a camera in his hands. He is a great photographer and likes to put the photos together in slide shows and DVD's. One Christmas we visited my parents and Kirk made a very cool DVD of the week. Everyone was so impressed! Kirk loves his family, especially his mom, and takes such good care of her. He is a kind person and rarely gets upset. He is even-tempered, which I really admire. He is truly a wonderful person and I know he will be a fun and wonderful father. I know he will be a great example for our children; he will love them, be there to support them in all they do and express his love to them often. I love and respect him and look forward to raising children with him.

Giving Your Child Every Opportunity

We promise to give your child every opportunity in life that we can.  We want so desperately to be parents, and we will love your child with all our hearts. We will teach, play with, nurture, support, build up, encourage, discipline, and guide them.  We will read to them and they will have an education.  We will do all we can to build a positive self-esteem. We will help them discover their own interests and hobbies by introducing them to things like sports, dance, music, computers, etc.  We hope to be their friends and confidants.

We plan to teach them essential life lessons such as how to work hard, be self-reliant, be financially responsible, have fun and make good decisions. We want them to be happy and find joy in their lives, and we will be there to support and encourage them every step of the way!

What We Like To Do

We are buddies. We love just hanging out with each other. Some of the things you can find us doing include playing games with our friends and family (Mexican Train is our favorite), capturing memories through photography and video, watching our favorite shows (Lost, The Office, American Idol, Wipeout), working together on the home we’ve built, attending church where we both work with youth, eating ice cream, exercising off the ice cream, discovering cool new music on iTunes, riding our beach cruiser bikes, traveling to visit friends and family, collecting magnets from our travels, boating, four-wheeling and snow skiing. We also just love to laugh and try to find the humor in most everything. We have our little inside jokes and nicknames for things.. and we keep each other entertained!

When we have children we plan to do these activities with them as well as help them discover their own interests and hobbies. We plan to teach them essential life lessons such as how to work hard, take care of themselves, be financially responsible and make good decisions. We want them to be happy and find joy in their lives, and we will be there to support and encourage them every step of the way!

What Makes Our Marriage Work

We started out as really good friends. We dated a long time (2 years) so we really got to know each other.  We have similar goals, interests, financial philosophies and backgrounds.  We were both raised in similar family situations. Our parents both have/had strong marriages and instilled the same types of values in their children. We both have the same level of commitment to our religious beliefs and talk openly about what we believe. We express our love to each other openly and verbally.  We have similar senses of humor. We both have a desire to make our marriage work, and are willing to communicate with each other and forgive each other when we have a disagreement. 

We were married in the temple, for time and all eternity, and we covenanted with God to honor each other and support each other and to be committed to our marriage.  We serve each other and express appreciation for the service we receive from each other. We have a healthy intimate relationship. We pray together and worship together. We apologize to each other when we've offended. We work together and share responsibilities around the home and in our day-to-day lives. We give each other the freedom to have our own interests, hobbies and time. We certainly don't have a perfect marriage, but it's been pretty great so far, and we've both noticed that it is getting stronger all the time.

Some of our Favorites

Dinners:
Heather: Chicken pot pie, anything BBQ, fettuccine Alfredo, lasagna and pizza
Kirk: Cereal, Chicken Parmesana, Spaghetti, Pizza, Ice cream

Movies:
Heather: Stardust, Lord of the Rings, Pride & Prejudice, The Burbs, You’ve Got Mail, and so many others. Basically I LOVE movies -- I really can’t pick a favorite.
Kirk: Nacho Libre, Christmas Vacation, Raising Arizona, Fletch

Colors:
Heather: to wear- pink and blue (not together). To decorate with- red, olive green, brown and yellow.
Kirk: Orange

Music:
Heather: Coldplay, Collective Soul, Robbie Williams, Gwen Stefani, Pink, INXS & Imogen Heap. We both love discovering new music too.. we get the cool new free download on iTunes every week.
Kirk: Coldplay, Dave Matthews Band, David Cook, Green Day, Feist, Train, Collective Soul

Websites:
Heather: www.stampinup.com, www.imdb.com, www.cnn.com, www.netflix.com and all my friends’ blogs
Kirk: www.macrumors.com, www.cnet.com, www.cnn.com, www.hulu.com, www.ebay.com

TV Shows:
Heather: Bones, Medium, House and Chuck
Kirk: History Channel, Nova
Both: Lost, The Office, American Idol, 24 and Heroes… We’d like to give a little shout out to TiVo, without which we’d never be capable of watching this much TV. It's kind of sad we know.

Treats:
Heather: Mint truffles, Twix, Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream and chocolate cake
Kirk: Reece’s Pieces, Smarties, Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream and stale marshmallows

Holidays:
Heather: Christmas and our wedding Anniversary
Kirk: Christmas

Our Home and Neighborhood

We moved into a new home that we built in July of 2006. We did a lot of the finish work ourselves (moldings, painting, tiling, building the retaining wall outside, etc) for a full year before we moved in. It was a lot of work, but it has been very satisfying and wonderful to live here and know that we’ve done a lot of the work ourselves. It turned out so beautifully! We LOVE it and feel so spoiled.

We try to make our home a peaceful place, wherein the spirit of our Savior, Jesus Christ, can always be felt. Our home is a safe place, where people are welcome and where we can laugh and be ourselves. Our home is a gathering place. We love to host get-togethers… we love to stoke up the BBQ and just have a great time with friends and family. We hope and pray for the day when we can welcome a precious little baby into our home so that we can share all the love and joy that we have with them.

We live in a great neighborhood. It is safe and quiet and we know our neighbors well. We have a pretty good mix of ages. There are lots of small children, as well as older children with middle-aged parents and elderly people. Because we're in Provo there are a lot of members of our church that live close by, so we are near people who share the same religious beliefs as us We live close to schools and parks, and it's a beautiful area with nice, well-kept homes.  We live in an established neighborhood, where people have lived here a long time, grew up here and now are raising their own children.  We really like the area where we live and will probably be here a long time. We have a really good community as well. There are lots of things to do, great healthcare, good schools, and a great sense of community.

Heather's Family

I am the 5th of 7 children. I LOVE my family and am close to every single one of my siblings. My parents are two of my best friends and I trust them implicitly. We all have similar senses of humor and when we get together we love to reminisce and laugh at the funny things we all think we’re saying! We have a lot of fun when we’re together. We’re growing rapidly too!

I was raised in a loving atmosphere where I was taught, nurtured, supported, and given many opportunities. My mom and dad were great examples of ‘how it’s done’ and I have learned a lot of wonderful lessons from them. My family is VERY supportive of adoption. I have one nephew who’s adopted, so we all know how incredibly special adoption is.

Kirk's Family

I am the baby in the family. I am the youngest of 6 kids. I have 2 sisters and 3 brothers. I have lots of nephews and nieces. They are so fun to have. My family gets together every week at my mom’s house to have dinner. It is great to visit with everyone and share all of our funny stories. My Mom is a great cook and everyone loves eating her food. I love having my family close. My brother lives next door to us and my other siblings are less than 45 minutes away. So we are extra close that way. We enjoy family reunions every summer. One of my best memories is the time we all went to Disney Land over Christmas. My whole family was there. It was one of my favorite Holidays. Last summer we spent a week at Bear Lake boating and swimming all week long. I really love my family.

Family Traditions

Kirk's Family's Traditions:

Sunday dinners at Kirk's mom's house, with the occasional variance to one of the sibling's homes on special occasions. Attending the July 4th hot air balloon festival and watching fireworks together.  Family reunion's at Bear Lake. Visiting Kirk's dad's grave on his birthday to participate in a memorial in which we write messages to him on balloons and then launch them into the air.  Spending Thanksgiving together (rotating Thanksgiving and Christmas with spouses families too). Thanksgiving traditions usually include going to a movie sometime during the day as a family, scouring the black friday ads and mapping out shopping routes, cousins playing, lots of turkey and stuffing and all the other traditional foods and playing games.  Christmas traditions include putting a big food box together for one or two families in need; rotating sibling gifts so we give a gift to one sibling each year; making our favorite treats (caramels, pumpkin pie, egg nog, etc.); spending the night at Kirk's mom's house on Christmas Eve; opening gifts on Christmas morning one at a time from youngest to oldest; and having a big Christmas Dinner.  We usually go sledding or ice skating as a family once a year.  For birthday's Kirk's mom gives us a nice gift, then at Sunday dinner we get our special birthday plate and and have cake and ice cream. Those are just a few of our favorites.

Heather's Family's Traditions:

Family reunion's every or every-other summer (this year we are going to Nauvoo for our reunion). Because Heather's parents still live in Washington, we usually go to visit them every summer for a week, and we spend the time swimming in the pool, playing games, watching movies, bar-b-queuing, sitting in their beautiful yard, and just spending time together. Our Thanksgiving traditions are very similar to Kirk's family. We always have Turkey.  We have a lot of traditions at Christmas time - we go caroling and take our neighbors goodies; we always make a million treats (almond roca, cinnamon rolls, white chocolate peanut clusters, rice crispy treats, fudge, and more); my dad reads us the story "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" on Christmas Eve; We also open presents all on Christmas morning, one by one from youngest to oldest, then watch movies, play in the snow or play games and have a big Christmas dinner. 

As a couple, we actively participate in our family's traditions (rotating the big holidays between families), and plan to carry on these as well as establish new traditions with our own children.  Family is very important to us.

How We Feel About Adoption

We truly feel that adoption is a blessing and a gift. We know that it is a serious decision, for us and especially for you dear birth parents. We have spent much time in prayer and we know that adoption is the way that we are supposed to have our family. Adoption gives us hope for the opportunity to welcome a child into our arms, a child that we will love and cherish with all our hearts. We are so thankful for you courageous birth parents who give your child life, and make so many sacrifices to give them what you think is best for them. We are honored to be a part of adoption

How We Feel About Open Adoption

We are completely Open to open adoption. We want you to know that your child will always know who you are and that you love them. We plan to be very open with them about adoption, letting them know that they were adopted before they even understand what that means.  We want them to know you, and to always love and respect you the tremendous act of love that you made on their behalf. We will always do our best to respect your wishes.

Kirk Describes Himself

I like to think of myself as a creative person. I work as a graphic designer and really enjoy it. I also enjoy building with my hands. We have done a lot of building and designing on our home. It has turned out great, if I do say myself. I’m a laid-back person that is usually calm and easy going. I go with the flow….unless it’s dinner at a Thai resturant. Can’t stand Thia food. I let my feelings be heard then. I get excited about technology and have a regular list of Tech Podcasts that I listen to every week. I like to be in the know. I really enjoy computers. Apple is one of my favorite brands and I like most anything they make. I’m a bit of a fan-boy when it comes to Apple. I enjoy playing basketball and watching football. I get quite excited when BYU does well. Go cougars! But then again, the Ute/Alababma game was out-of-this-world awesome! I enjoy traveling and have found a love for Europe in the last few years. I’ve been to Barcelona twice. I loved it. I want to go to London or Paris next. I love my family and love Heather greatly. I badly want to be a great husband and father. I think I’m doing a good job so far. Heather might have a few things to say about that. J It’s now the father part that I want so bad. I am so excited about adoption and am amazed at the selflessness of birth parents that place their babies. I am so grateful for you.

Heather Describes Herself

I am a creative person. I love to create hand-made cards and other projects. I love to decorate our home. I love to take photos and scrapbook them into books and calendars. I love to cook, try new recipes, and especially bake! I am a kind person. I try to see the good in others. I am a very loyal friend. I am easy to talk to. I am a spiritual person. I love my Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ. I try to follow them and do what is right. I love to serve others. I am athletic. I love to play tennis, volleyball, basketball, softball, football and lots of other sports. I love to laugh. I love to make others laugh. I love to tell stories and talk with friends. I am a social person. I love to relax to a good movie. I love to shop. I love finding that perfect card or gift for a friend. I love chocolate. I often overstress. That’s why I need chocolate! I am a people pleaser. I am a peacemaker. I love being married to Kirk and being by his side. I am a very blessed woman.

What Life is Like for us These Days

We've been married for just over 4 years! My how time flies. Life is pretty good to us. It's hard to capture EVERYTHING that goes on in our lives.. I mean, who would really have time to read all that? But here are a handful of photos to help give you an idea of what we're up to on a pretty regular basis.

These photos are not in chronological order because I can only upload 5 photos at a time and it takes too long for me to figure that all out.. so this is a random smattering of snippets of our life!

Every year Kirk's aunt, we call her 'Aunt' gives all her great nieces and nephews a reward for good grades in school. In 2007 it was a trip to Lagoon. I was lucky enough to join them! That's me (Heather) in the yellow and in front of me are nieces and nephew Ali, Brittney and Scott. CUTE kids.
This is Kirk with our new little nephew Ryan. We ADORE him. We usually get to see him at Sunday dinner at Kirk's mom's house and we stock up on all our hugs and kisses.

We put Christmas lights on our roof last weekend! We have 12 ft ceilings so our house is really TALL. We felt like we were taking our lives in our own hands.. but hey, it's for Christmas! I got down from the roof to snap a few pictures :) But I helped!!

We go to my brother's house a lot and this is their newest little son, Noah. He's also VERY cute, as you can see. He's a smiley boy.. when he doesn't have his binkey in his mouth!

Me kicking the socks off of some poor Wii man at my parents' house in Washington this summer. We discovered that we are big fans of the Wii!

We went to the University of Washington/BYU football game in Seattle in September. We flew in to Seattle and my parents picked us up and we had a blast! We hung out in Seattle all day on Friday and then went to the game on Saturday. BYU won by the way.. a very exciting game.

We ate lunch at Red Robin on the deck overlooking the beautiful Puget Sound. GORGEOUS! I'm not a fan of humidity however :)

Kirk's family went to Bear Lake this summer for a family reunion. It was a BLAST! we stayed in a cabin all together and hung out on our boats for 4 days. This is a pic of just a few of us.. Jason (b-i-l), Jake (nephew) and his wife Shalynn, Kirk and Kourtney (niece)l

My older sister and I hopped in the car with her son, Chase, and went to my little brother Clark's graduation in June. It was a very special occasion. Clark has Downs Syndrome and we were SO proud of him for graduating. He's such a wonderful Kid.

Kirk giving our niece Emily a big bear hug.

Kirk's family always goes to the hot air balloon festival for the July 4th celebration. We get up SUPER early and watch all the balloons launch and enjoy a little breakfast together. It's a fun tradition.

Kirk at the wheel of our boat. Love that wind-blown look!

Kirk wake boarding. I love to ski and wake board too.. I just usually take the photos!

Kirk is working to finish our downstairs!! I'm so excited. We'll finally have our master bedroom! Kirk is so handy and knows how to do so much around the house.

This is pretty much what it looks like at my mother-in-law's house at Sunday dinner. We're not in this picture.. but the family usually gathers in the living room and we all just hang.

We LOVE the game Mexican Train. We have some good friends, Marie and Adam, who we play with all the time! we just laugh and it's gets pretty competitive. As long as I beat Kirk then all is well :) He would say the same I guess.

Kirk's father passed away about 11 years ago. We remember and honor him every year on his birthday by going to the cemetery and launching balloons with a message to him. We take turns reading our message, youngest to oldest, before we let them fly. We look forward to this every year.

We LOVE the comedian Brian Regan. We have gone to his concert two summers in a row now! We invited my brother Jeremy and his wife Birgitta this year. We laughed our little faces off.

Well, this is another long post.. but I wanted to share a little look at what it's like in our world. We work and we play and we love being with our families! We have fun together and life is pretty laid-back. We're happy with what we have!

Our Love Story

Greetings! We want to share with you our little love story. We've been married for 4 years now.. my how the time flies! We met in college. I (Heather) was in my last year of school and Kirk had been graduated and working as a graphic designer for about two years. We were in the same ward (church congregation). It was the beginning of a new winter semester when Kirk moved into my same apartment complex. I had already been there for fall semester.. and when a new semester turned over it was always so exciting to check out the new guys and see if anyone was cute! Kirk walked into the room where we were meeting for church and I was INSTANTLY attracted to him. He was SO handsome in his suit and I'm a sucker for a tall, dark and handsome man. I was always shy when it came to boys.. so it took me some time to get up the courage just to talk to him. I told him that one of my best guy friends had just moved out of his very apartment and I was so used to being over there (which was totally true) that he was just going to have to be my new best friend! I'm sure he saw right through that, but oh well, I had an instant crush on him. I don't think he knew he really liked me until it just snuck up on him! He tells me that he just couldn't resist hanging out with me because he thought I was so fun. I knew it would work if I was just myself :) We had so much fun together as friends. We were so comfortable around each other. We would shop together, exercise, eat dinner, play games, watch movies, get ice cream, play frisbee (ok sidenote.. I have NEVER seen anyone throw a frisbee as good as Kirk.. it's crazy), try new flavors of slurpees at 7-11 and so on. Kirk was working on remodeling a house with his brother too at the time and I helped him with that often.

One night we were talking in his living room and laughing and then we both just got really quiet.. and then he KISSED me! I was so freaked out! I was excited and nervous and happy and just freaked. It was so fun to go home and tell my roomates that he finally kissed me! We officially started dating after that and we dated for just over a year before we got engaged. I have some pictures of us while we were dating below. My mom gave me a camera for Christmas after we'd already been dating a while.. so that's when my photos begin.

Our first Christmas together I was invited to Disneyland with his whole family! It was a BLAST! Here are just a couple of pics:

In the car on the way to California

In front of the Tiki Lounge 

Here we are getting ready for a day of skiing at Brighton. I had to keep up with the boys all day.. Yikes! It was really fun though. And we stopped by Kirk's mom's house on the way home for her world famous french toast.

We got engaged in November of 2004. Kirk took me up the canyon to Sundance Ski Resort. There was a big bon fire waiting for us outside. Kirk took me by the hand over to the fire. We huddled there for a little while and talked, I kind of knew what was coming.. I was so excited! Kirk bent down to tie his shoe, and then got on his knee and held up my engagement ring. It was in a box that had a light in it so I could see it in the dark.. a great affect I might add. He asked me to marry him, which I of course agreed to. He then took me to eat at this wonderful restaurant. It was so quiet and romantic and the food was wonderful and we were so happy.

Here's a picture of my wedding ring, isn't it so pretty? I LOVE it.

We had a two-month engagement, which I think is just the right amount of time. Here are a couple of our engagement pictures. Kirk designed our wedding invitations and they turned out really cool.

Here's one of my bridal pictures

Here's our wedding day. It was such a wonderful day. Everything went so smoothly and we were so happy to be married in the temple. I served a mission for my church on Temple Square in Salt Lake City and I really wanted to be married in the Salt Lake Temple. It is such a beautiful and special place to me. Although January 21st isn't a particularly warm day to get married :) But I got to wear a 'snow cape' so that made it all good.

Here's my family

and Kirk's family

Kirk told me on our wedding day that it was the best day of his life so far. That is still one of the most sincere, sweet things he's ever said to me.

We went to McCall Idaho for our honeymoon.. random I know. But we had some family friends that own a house there and so it was very affordable. We went snow skiing and walked around town to check out the ice sculptures and snuggled by the fire. It was actually really great!

So that's our story in a nutshell.. I know it doesn't feel like a nutshell probably after all you've read. But this is the story of how we met. After 4 years of marriage we are doing great and still have so much fun together. I will tell you more about us in future posts!