It all started as friends in college. Life is the best when you begin as friends, but little did we know there was a lot more there. We started our marriage together in Missouri, and after seven years, we moved our family to a beautiful community in Arkansas. Mark joined Katie’s family's business as the general manager. We have an adorable, outgoing, funny little four-year-old boy named Finnley. Our new addition is a golden retriever named Lollie. Our favorite activities are the outdoors, water sports, traveling, and spending time with our family and friends. We stay busy in our community with sports, civic organizations, and church. Katie is a community development officer at a bank. She coordinates events and marketing for the organization. As a couple, we’re both hardworking but know how to have a lot of fun! We live each day like it’s our last!

We have outstanding relationships with both families and love spending quality time with them, whether it is at home, spending time outside, riding bikes around the neighborhood, at the lake, or on vacation. We were both raised in very loving, faithful, and hardworking families. We both have one brother, who are both married with children.

Holidays and birthdays are a big deal in our family. We love dyeing Easter eggs, going on scavenger hunts, watching fireworks, and celebrating everyone’s birthdays. Our neighborhood decorates and enjoys Halloween. We typically have over 500 trick-or-treaters at our house. For Christmas, we go to plays and festivals, decorate our house, and attend many parties and family gatherings.

Mark grew up playing sports and spent weekends at a family lake house during the summer. Katie’s family are big Notre Dame fans, so the fall is all about football. We typically go to one Notre Dame game each season.

We live in a beautiful area in Arkansas. Our house is a beautiful 20-year-old, two-story brick home with four bedrooms and three baths, with a large, fenced-in backyard. Our house is very bright with pops of color. Our neighborhood consists of newer homes with families of all ages and backgrounds. Parents and children are seen riding their scooters, big wheels, and bikes and walking their dogs any time of the year. Everyone in our neighborhood is very friendly and stops to talk to each other. The neighborhood is like living in Mayberry. We live in a wonderful community surrounded by three rivers and two lakes. It’s a vacation destination for many people. We have a fun, loving new puppy named Lollie!

We love all children! We struggled for many years to get pregnant. After years of trying, we turned to fertility treatments and gratefully got pregnant with our son, Finnley. After having Finnley, we knew we wanted to grow our family and discussed adopting a baby. Adoption is a beautiful journey! God has surrounded us with many friends who have adopted or are adopted. One of Finnley’s favorite babysitters is adopted. Two of Mark’s best friends were both adopted, and our friends from college adopted both of their children. God has guided us to adoption, and we believe in our hearts that there is a special baby out there for us. We are excited to share the love of our family and community with our future child.