With our country lifestyle, our lives are filled with opportunities for fun, entertainment, companionship and reward.

Activities on our farm may vary depending on the parent or child, but they include hunting, hiking, ice skating, snowmobiling, ATV’ing, building forts, playing sports, driving tractors, biking, baking, watching movies, doing crafts and more. We like to find things we can do as a family no matter what the age. Each child may have a different activity they like to do, and as the parents we try to give each of them plentiful amounts of parent-child interaction.

Beyond the limits of our farm, we enjoy going to visit friends and family, fishing, playing sports, volunteering at church, and going out to eat. Generally speaking we like to live flexible and go with the flow of life as it comes.

Most of our family and friends live within an hour driving distance of our farm. Mary has three brothers. Two that are older and one younger. Craig has 2 older biological sisters and 3 step-siblings from his mother’s remarriage after his father’s passing. Craig has 3 children from his first marriage, which are a 13 year old daughter, an 11 year old son and a 7 year old daughter. Mary has 2 adoptive daughters through foster care. One is 4 years old and has been with Mary since she was 3 days old. The other daughter is 18 years old and has been with Mary since she was a year old. Our friend network consists of people from church, work and childhood friends. All of our family and friends have been a huge part of our life and our story. They have all been extremely happy and supportive of both of us and our relationship.

With the unique environment of living in wide open spaces on a farm and supported with the stability and resources of business ownership, our home is filled with opportunity to have fun, learn, grow and pursue almost any opportunity imaginable. We recently constructed an addition onto and remodeled our farm house that is nestled on a 160 acre parcel of land where we grow corn and soybean crops. Even though we have the luxury of space, access to groceries, big box stores and other amenities are located only 10 to 15 minutes away. The closest city, with a population of about 2700, is where our family attends church and children attend school. The city has a strong sense of community and provides a humble family feel.

Adoption is an integral part of our family. From a young age, Mary has had the passion to nurture and care for children outside of her biological family. At the age of 17, Mary began caring for our oldest adopted daughter who is now 17 years old herself.

A little over three years ago, Mary adopted our youngest daughter through foster care. This prospering beautiful girl is evidence of how genuine love and nurturing can change a child’s life.

We, Mary and Craig, united in 2024 and immediately shared in the passion to adopt another child to expand our family with the benefit of providing companionship for our youngest daughter, who can relate to and share in the experience of adoption. We want to provide each child with the comfort and confidence to be themselves while being loved the same whether they are biological children or adopted.