Kourtney & Chase In Iowa

We met, believe it or not, on the first day of our college career! We were in the same orientation group, then in the same Science 101 class, then in the same group in that class, and we lived right across the road from each other! I guess that you could say "it was meant to be"!

Chase graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering and works as a Process Engineer in a production facility. He loves his job! He is always busy at work and is learning and doing something different every day. Kourtney graduated with an Associate's Degree in General Studies with an emphasis on Marriage and Family. Kourtney loves psychology and understanding the way that others think. We are blessed that Kourtney can be a stay-at-home mom, which is all that she has really wanted to do since she was a young woman.

We love riding bikes together, camping, bowling, swimming and traveling to see family or friends in Wisconsin, Colorado, Texas, Idaho, Utah and Nevada! We are also blessed to have local friends through church and school, and love to get together with them for dinner and play dates for our kiddos!

Our daughter Nora is 5 years old and loves to play! She loves school and her teacher with her whole little heart! She loves learning to read and write, being outside and helping us around the house. Nora is very excited to have a baby brother or sister!

Our home is the center of life for us, and we do everything we can to make it a place of Love and Joy. We have a large backyard that is mostly just a big hill. But hey, built in sledding hill for fun in the snow! Our neighbors are amazing and have basically adopted our daughter, Nora, as an honorary granddaughter. The city that we live in is just big enough to have fun events and small enough that it's not crazy. Nora attends school at a Lutheran private school, which we absolutely love! Her teachers and the rest of the school staff have hearts of gold and are true blessings. During the warmer months, we have many parks that we love to go to, and most of them are connected by a bike/walking trail that runs nearly 15 miles. We also love to go swimming at the YMCA and other outdoor public swimming locations.

Our daughter Nora is 5 years old, and she loves to play! She loves school and her teacher with her whole little heart! She loves learning to read and write. She is constantly asking “how do you spell this?” She loves to come home and show us her projects and assignments. Nora loves being outside and wants to be outside even if it’s really hot or cold! She loves helping and likes to surprise us with a swept floor or cleaned window. She also has normal chores that she completes each day as well as extra chores that she can earn money for.

Nora is a sensitive and spiritual child, and we often marvel at her profound words. She loves Jesus so much and wants to tell everyone about Him. She is very inquisitive and asks questions like “What is true love?” “Are princesses real or just in fairytales?” “Why did those men nail Jesus to the cross?”

Nora is very excited to have a baby brother or sister! She prays often for a baby brother or sister and talks about naming the baby and having the baby in our family forever! We would love nothing more than to add another member to the clan to join in our fun activities!

We both have four siblings and we cherish those relationships! We want our Nora and any future children to have that experience.

We love traditions in this house! We have traditions surrounding Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter as well as some other occasions. We have “family home evening” every Monday where we have a quick lesson, an activity, and a treat! Sometimes the activity is a craft or a game, sometimes we go for a walk, and sometimes we go out and serve someone! We love having that planned time each week so that we make sure we spend quality time together.

For Thanksgiving, Chase’s family includes us in a huge dinner with lots of extended family, penny poker, volleyball, and board games. Kourtney’s family mostly likes to sit around and visit after eating a huge meal of their own.

For Christmas, we put up our tree together as soon as Thanksgiving is over. We love seeing old ornaments from our childhood as well as Nora’s additions each year. We go caroling at least once and love to make cookies to deliver as we sing. If we spend Christmas with Chase’s family, we eat a “Mary and Joseph Dinner” on Christmas Eve. Nora LOVES it. We all sit on the floor and eat what we think Joseph and Mary would have eaten that night in Bethlehem. If we are with Kourtney’s family, we go caroling and participate in a live nativity at Church! Nora loves to dress up, so this is right up her alley. No matter where we celebrate, we always love attending the Christmas Sunday service at Church.

Easter is a huge deal, and we celebrate all throughout Holy Week. We talk about what Jesus said and did during his last days each day. We celebrate Palm Sunday by attending church and having a good discussion. Monday, we have a family home evening where we build an Easter garden with a tomb for Jesus. Thursday, we have a “Last Supper dinner” very similar to our “Mary and Joseph dinner.” We talk about Christ breaking and blessing bread and wine for his disciples instead of his birth. Friday, we talk about Christ’s death and suffering while we put a little picture of him in the tomb. On Sunday morning, we take Jesus out of the tomb and stand him up outside the door. We enjoy resurrection rolls and rejoice as we attend Easter Sunday services at our church. We usually end the day with a ham dinner and Easter egg hunt.

Our daughter is a miracle baby! When the doctors indicated that we would not be able to have any more children, we knew that it was time to start
learning about adoption. We would love nothing more than the blessing of loving another child within our home.