Krystal In Missouri

My core values and guiding principles for my life are Faith and Family; everything else comes after. My faith-based relationship with the Lord is the single most important part of who I am. I am far from perfect, but I strive to live my life so that it is pleasing to the Lord. God has blessed me in every single area of my life and I owe Him my everything.

Growing up and for most of my adult life I was always an official member of a church. In recent years, I have found myself not associated with a specific church, but I feel my relationship with the Lord continues to grow and get stronger. I do hope to find another church that I can start attending again that aligns with my beliefs. In the meantime, I am currently on a journey to read the Bible from beginning to end in one year. I tried this in 2022 and lost track about halfway thru. I do my best not to give up, so I started over again in January of 2023 and I'm excited for the time this allows me to spend with God everyday, learning, reflecting and growing closer to Him. I intend to raise my future child to love the Lord with their entire being, and to trust that His will is what is best for our lives.

My family is also very important to me, and I would not be the person I am today without them. I am an only child. While I always desired to have siblings growing up, as an adult I am grateful for the relationship being an only child allowed me to have with my parents. My mom is my absolute best friend, and we are each other's number one fans. Both my parents have instilled wholesome, faith-based values in me from a very young age. Even now, we are always there for each other and support one another in all we desire to accomplish.

I love entertaining and having people over to my home. If we are going to have a gathering with friends or family, I am usually the one to host it. It brings me so much joy to share the home that God has blessed me with and I love having my loved ones over for special occasions or "just because."

Speaking of entertaining, another one of my hobbies is cooking. I love trying new recipes and making up some of my own. I'm always looking up new dishes online and cooking them for myself or for a family gathering. I try to live a healthy lifestyle including making healthy food choices, so I enjoy finding yummy recipes and altering them with healthier more nutritious ingredients.

I also have a new found passion for gardening. I built a garden in my backyard and plan to grow lots of vegetables and flowers every spring and summer. I also do my best to stay active and enjoy finding fun ways to exercise and move my body to stay in shape.

I was blessed to build my dream home in the summer of 2022. I always wanted to build a new house and I'm so grateful that my dream came to reality. My neighborhood is very small, just two cul-de-sacs and many of the homes are still being built. My home is two stories with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. The bedroom nearest to mine will be the baby's nursery, and there is a large open area upstairs we will use as a playroom as they grow up. I also have a large backyard with a garden and lots of open flat space to run and play. My neighbors are all very nice and come from different backgrounds. I have some neighbors that are retired with grandchildren, and others are families with young children. It is nice because we are all new to this subdivision since it is brand new, so we have a chance to build community and neighborly relationships from the beginning. I live in a good school district and the elementary school is less than five minutes away. There are a lot of parks around that I love going to when the weather is nice. One of my favorites has a huge lake with a walking trail around it.

My extended family is quite large. I have many cousins, but I am very close with two of them. The three of us girls all spend significant time together with our parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. We love gathering for holidays, birthdays, summer cookouts and "just because". Our family is far from perfect. We have our own challenges just like most families do. But we love each other to the moon and back, and we will go to the ends of the earth to make sure we are all taken care of.

One of my cousins who I am extremely close with is Andrea. She is more like a sister than a cousin to me. We refer to each other as "Best Cousins." We have an incredibly special bond that is hard to describe in words. We have a lot of similarities yet we challenge and make each other better because of our differences. We have the same sense of humor and often annoy other people laughing at inside jokes or things we find funny that no one else understands. She is Godmommy to my dog Kokoa, and I am Godmommy to her dog Phoebe.

My best friend, Letitia, is also someone very special to me that I feel is appropriate to include when talking about my family. She, Andrea and I are three peas in a pod! We often talk about how we are closer to one another than we are to some family members. Letitia and her husband Maurice (who I refer to as my Brother), come to so many of our family gatherings. In fact, if they are not there, someone is always asking where they are because they are just like family. My parents have adopted them as their niece and nephew. We have experienced a lot of joy and a lot of pain together, and through it all our bond has never broken.

My family is very special to me. We spend a lot of time together. All holidays, birthdays and other special celebrations we spend together as a family. It is usually my Mom and Dad, my Dad's sister Lisa, who I refer to as "Best Auntee", my two cousins Annanda and Andrea, and both of my Grandmothers. Most of our gatherings consist of a lot of food and a lot of laughter.

In the summer, my Dad loves to BBQ and make homemade ice cream. For Thanksgiving, my Mom and I do most of the traditional dishes and my Mom is famous for her peach cobbler and pound cake. For Christmas, my Dad makes lasagna and I always make a ton of Christmas cookies and treats. When we get together, we eat, play games, dance and reminisce on old times. We love pulling out old photo albums and talking about memories from the past. I am blessed to have both of my Grandmothers still living and in good health for their ages (they are 81 and 91 years old)! It is wonderful to hear stories from their pasts and reflect on the memories of those that have passed on.

I have dreamed of being a mother since I was very young, and adopting a child was always part of that dream. I love children and the idea of raising a child in a loving, caring home is something I desire very much. I believe being a mother is part of God's plan for my life.