We both enjoy being active and taking time to unwind at home. We love playing pickleball and taking our dogs on walks. We also love spending time outside in our backyard garden. Arnie has several hobbies such as golf, bowling, working out and doing projects around the house. He is in a bowling league and golfs with his friends often. Jenna loves taking walks outside and also loves reading, coloring, listening to music and spending time with friends. We consider our friends like our family and they all live very close and have growing families so we will be able to have plenty of play dates! We also love cooking our favorite meals together. One of our favorites to cook is a crunchy salmon bowl. We have it multiple times each week! We also spend most Saturdays getting coffee, wandering into a new breakfast place and ending at our local farmers market together. Every Friday we have a pizza night and enjoy a quiet night in with one of our favorite foods! During the summer, we enjoy planning and taking road trips to some of our favorite destinations. Mackinac Island is our favorite place to visit annually. We also love hopping in the car, listening to an audiobook with a great narrator and taking weekend road trips to enjoy time together. No matter if we’re at home or traveling, we just love doing life together. We’re excited to add children to all of these traditions!

There is so much that we both admire about each other that we can't wait to share with our child.

Jenna About Arnie: There are so many things that I love about Arnie. He is incredibly dedicated and hard working. He puts everything into anything he takes on, whether at work or in his golf or bowling leagues. Arnie is also incredibly patient and caring. He is a great listener and incredibly empathetic towards me and I can't wait to see him treat our children the same way. I also love his goofy sense of humor. He is always making me laugh...even when I don't want to! I can't wait for Arnie to pass all of these qualities down to our children.

Arnie About Jenna: Jenna is one of the most loving and caring people that I have met. She goes out of her way all of the time to make sure that everyone around her is taken care of. Another quality that I love about Jenna is that she is an extremely dedicated and hard worker and does everything she can to make sure that her goals are met. Once she has something on her mind, there is no stopping her from getting that goal completed. I know that with all of the qualities that Jenna has, she is going to be the best Mom anyone could ask for.

Jenna is an Elementary School Teacher and has been in the classroom for ten years. Jenna always knew she wanted to be a teacher. She loves being in a job where she is truly making a difference each day and getting to work with kids. While the academic aspect of school is important, Jenna's favorite part of her job is getting to help each child develop confidence, sense of self, a lifelong love for learning and helping each child develop as a person and friend. Each day, Jenna feels as though she is able to laugh, learn something new and continue to develop as a person because of the students she works with. She has truly become a better person by being a teacher. With the help of our parents and an excellent daycare, Jenna plans to return to the classroom and continue teaching after we are lucky enough to welcome children into our family.

Arnie is a Software Engineer for a national supply company. Arnie has been working in the technology industry since he graduated college. He enjoys problem solving and puzzles and his career allows him to do just that. His career requires dedication, perseverance and open mindedness. These traits have helped Arnie grow both professionally and personally. He has continued to grow in his ability to see that there is always more than one way to accomplish a task. Arnie is excited to take all that he has learned in his career and apply those traits to parenting.

Both of our families are incredibly tight knit, supportive and loving. Both of our parents live nearby. Jenna's parents live within ten minutes of us and Arnie's parents live just over an hour away. Since Jenna's parents are so close, we see them on a regular basis for dinner, holidays and weekly get-togethers. We see Arnie's parents at least once each month as well. Both of our parents love coming to our house to have dinner, play games, celebrate holidays and hang out with our pups!

Jenna has one brother, Marc who lives in Chicago with his partner, Colin. We see both of them and their two cats often. We usually go down to their house for dinner since both of them are great cooks. Arnie has one brother, Luke who lives in Atlanta with his wife, Erin. We are incredibly close with Luke and Erin even though the distance makes getting together a bit tough. Sometimes we go to Georgia and other times they travel to us in Illinois, but no matter where we are we always have a blast. It's even more fun now that they have welcomed their first child, and our first nephew, baby Wesley! Jenna's extended family also lives within a half hour of us. We are close with her nana, papa and her cousins who have kids. Arnie's extended family is more spread out, but we still get a chance to see and connect with them each year. Our families are extremely excited for us to welcome children through the adoption process and can't wait to build new family memories for years to come.

Both of our families are incredibly tight knit, supportive and loving.

Both of our parents live nearby. Jenna's parents live within ten minutes of us and Arnie's parents live just over an hour away. Since Jenna's parents are so close, we see them on a regular basis for dinner, holidays and weekly get togethers. We see Arnie's parents at least once each month as well. Both of our parents love coming to our house to have dinner, play games, celebrate holidays and hang out with our pups!

Jenna has one brother, Marc who lives in Chicago with his partner, Colin. We see both of them and their two cats often. We usually go down to their house for dinner since both of them are great cooks. Arnie has one brother, Luke who lives in Atlanta with his wife, Erin. We are incredibly close with Luke and Erin even though the distance makes getting together a bit tough. We took a roadtrip to go see them for a week earlier this year and it was a blast.

Jenna's extended family also lives within a half hour of us. We are close with her nana, papa and her cousins who have kids. Arnie's extended family is more spread out, but we still get a chance to see and connect with them each year. Our families are extremely excited for us to welcome a child through the adoption process and can't wait to build new family memories for years to come.

We want to start by recognizing you and your courageous choice to consider adoption. We know that it took a lot of bravery, selflessness and careful consideration. We admire and respect your strength as you move forward with this incredibly important decision. So thank you, for taking the time to get to know us.

We want you to know that in our home, your child is going to be so incredibly loved, cared for and supported no matter what. We can't wait to pour everything we have into your child to give them the best life possible. We have always wanted to be parents and we will do everything to provide your child with what they need to become the best possible version of themselves. Our number one priority is and will always be your child, fostering a positive environment for them and their well being physically, emotionally and spiritually. We are strong supporters of open adoption and we want your child to have a great relationship with you from the beginning. We're so excited to get to know you and welcome you as part of our family. We can't wait to pass along photos, give updates and share important milestones with you.

You might be wondering what led us to choose adoption. From the beginning of our relationship, we both knew that adoption was our path to parenthood. We bonded over this quite early and we knew immediately this was how we wanted our family to grow. We have always loved thinking about starting our family and how our adoption journey would unfold. We get more and more excited thinking about the big and small moments we will get to create as our family grows. From the smallest things like nightly bedtime stories and family walks around the block to our annual Mackinac Island trip and opening gifts on Christmas morning with our families, we know that we are going to be great parents. We have both dreamed of becoming "mom and dad" since we can remember and are so excited about adoption being our path to those titles. We feel incredibly lucky and blessed to be able to welcome you and your child with open arms to our family.

We are looking forward to getting to know you a bit more, but we thought we would share a bit about ourselves. We met in 2015 at our alma mater. From the moment we met, we had a strong connection. We bonded over our love to laugh and not take things too seriously. After graduating, Jenna got a teaching job near where Arnie was working at the time. After a year of long distance and working, we got our first apartment in the Chicago suburbs together. Two years later, we got engaged downtown Chicago after we went to see Hamilton. We both love the theater, so the day couldn't have been better. It's been 8 years since we got engaged and we still love heading to the theater together! As if getting engaged wasn't exciting enough, we also bought our first house right down the block from our apartment in 2019 and have been making that house a home ever since. Our wedding day just a few months later was full of everyone we love, lots of dancing and great food which made for the best day. We decided that our house was a bit too quiet, so we adopted our first dog, Albus, in 2020. Our second dog, Ada, came along from the same shelter in 2022. We have built an incredible foundation together over the past eleven years with each other and are ready for our next great adventure...being parents!

We are incredibly close with our families and our parents and siblings are so excited for us to jump into parenthood. Both of our parents are ready to be grandparents and our siblings are ready to be aunts and uncles. Arnie's brother and his wife just recently welcomed their first child and they can't wait to add "aunt and uncle" to their resume. Our grandparents can't wait to meet their great grandchild and give them as many snuggles as possible. We both have large extended families whom we are very close with, so our cousins are excited to meet their new second cousin and their kids are all so excited to have another playmate. We consider our friends to be more like family as well and they are all so excited to welcome another little one to our playgroup too!

We vow to you that we will give your child the best life in every sense of the word. We will keep them safe, healthy and most importantly we will love them unconditionally. We will have a house full of love, laughter and support. We will make the best core memories together from retelling the funniest vacation stories and breakfast dates around town to playing at the park and dancing together in our kitchen as we cook dinner. Thank you, again, for your selfless decision to pursue adoption and for taking the time to consider us. You are so incredibly brave, strong, and selfless. We appreciate you and your consideration more than we can put into words. We look forward to our journey together.

Arnie & Jenna