A Family For Every Child
A Family For Every Child
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Kia and Timothy
Kia and Timothy

Kia and Timothy
Minnesota

Basic Info

Kia

Age: 51
Sex:
Race/Ethnicity:
Religion:

Timothy

Age: 52
Sex:
Race/Ethnicity:
Religion:

Child Preferences

Age: 5 to 9 years old
Sex: Female
Max Number of Children: 1
Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian, African American, Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Mixed, Bi-Racial, Unknown


Special Needs the Family is Open To: Any Child, One/Both Parents Have Had a Mental Diagnosis, Multiple Placements, Willing to Maintain Contact via Mail with Bio Family, Willing to Maintain Contact with Past Foster Parents, Willing to Maintain Contact with Bio Grandparents & Other Relatives, Willing to Maintain Contact with Bio Siblings

Environment

State: Minnesota
Neighborhood:
Residency:
Years Together: 11
Children in the Home: 1
Pet(s):

Work

Kia

Occupation: Graphic Designer

Timothy

Occupation: Quality Assurance Senior Systems Engineer

Adoption Agency

Agency: Anoka County Social Services
Worker: Nancy Le
Worker: nancy.le@co.anoka.mn.us
City: Anoka
State: MN
Zip: 55303

Family Description

Tim and I have been married for 11 years this July 12, 2013. We have a 9 year old biological daughter. We are active in our church and church community volunteering both at church and the school. Campbelle, our daughter attends Epiphany Catholic School in Coon Rapids. We are an active family outside in the warmer MN spring, summer, and fall months with camping, biking, walking, swimming and other outdoor activities. I, Kia, was adopted when I was an infant and located my birthmother and birthfather when I was 18. We have a great relationship, and adoption is something I have always wanted to do. After meeting my wonder husband, we always knew this was a path we wanted to take in our life journey. Our daughter is active in drama, arts, play the viola in orchestra, swimming and playing with friends. We have a family pet. His name is Trooper and he is a lovely Australian Shepard that is 5 years old. He loves to be with the family every minute, play catch, and go for rides and walks.

Preference Description

We would like to adopt a girl, and our hope is to adopt a child that needs a loving home that is born after 12/29/2003, to keep our daughter as the oldest. We would like the emotional/behavioral factors to be categorized as mild or less.

To our next child - We want to welcome you to our Family!

We are a very active, fun and loving family of 3 looking to add another child to our family. Tim and I have been married for 12 1/2 years. We have one biological daughter who is 11 and her name is Campbelle. Our beloved family pet is an Australian Shepard dog named Trooper, who is 7.

Our family is hoping to adopt a girl or boy between the ages of 5 - 10. We are open to adopting a child of a different cultural background. We will work hard to honor cultural traditions and incorporate these traditions into our family traditions. Additionally, a child of a cultural background will be welcomed by many nieces and nephews, as there are 2 nephews and 2 nieces of mixed cultural background.

Introduction

Tim and I both work at great companies and have the full support of our employers for our adoption. Our jobs allow for flexibility, as both of our companies are supportive and will allows us time off from work to bond, adapt and attach to our new child. We are grateful to have such awesome jobs and the fact we both love what we do and enjoy going to work every day.

We have supper together every evening as a family, where we discuss each other's day and catch up. We also include our beloved Aussie "Trooper" in the discussion, as he has a lot to tell us on Tuesday's and Thursdays after he gets home from his adventures at "Doggy Daycare!" Oh, how the care takers there love and adore Trooper.

For fun times as a family and building memories, our family enjoys camping, bonfires in our back yard, attending country music festivals, bike riding, taking Trooper for walks, visiting with neighbors, attending church, helping our church families, visiting with family members, playing outside during the spring/summer/fall and snowmobiling and sledding in the winter, and family vacations to Disney. This summer we plan to find a campground that we can park our camper at for the whole summer and camp every weekend. Campbelle is looking forward to this and so excited at the prospect of having a brother or sister to share these memories with, as are we looking forward to building memories with another addition to our family.

Home and Community

We have a nice home in the northern suburbs of a metro area. Our home has 3 bedrooms on the same level and a large basement with a toy area filled with toys and a large TV for "family movie nights." Our favorite family meal is spaghetti, which we try to have at least once a week or every other week. We have a large fenced in backyard and jungle gym/swing set to play on, in addition to many parks in our community. There are 4 parks very close to our neighborhood that we enjoy walking and biking to for our daughter to play. We also live close to Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park, where there are beautiful walking and bike paths to enjoy. We hit the parks on the weekends as much as possible during the Spring, Summer and Fall months.

Our daughter Campbelle is in 5th grade. We are very active in our church community and at our daughter's school. She is active in Cross-Country and Drama at school, swimming at Foss Swim School and participating on the Foss Swim Team. Campbelle attends a private school in the suburb where we live. Her school is connected to our church, which is very important to our family. The child we adopt will be given the choice on whether they wish to attend a private or public school. We believe showing the child both options and allowing them to be involved in the decision making will make them feel more in control, help with the transition and provide them with an example on how we will guide them as parents to help them make a well informed-decision. Our daughter attends an after school extended care program for 1 - 1 1/2 hours each day of the school week, where she has the opportunity to play with her school friends, do activities and crafts, and work on homework. If the child we adopt chooses to attend a public school, there is also an after school care program there and is located less than 1/2 mile from our home.

The bedroom for the child we adopt contains a large double bed, lots of stuffed animals, a dresser, desk and chair of their own, and a bulletin board which the child is encouraged to hang up what is important to them and two large closets. We are waiting to paint the bedroom until our forever child is adopted into our family, as we encourage the child to pick their own paint colors and decor to make the room specifically their room. Campbelle is very excited to help with this process, as we recently repainted her room to a more 'tween girls room' of purple, pink, and aqua with lots of peace signs and matching decor. Campbelle say's helping a sister decorate her room would might be easier and possibly more fun, but she is excited to help a brother with decorating his room, too!

Our family has many traditions on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter and we are so excited to bring a child into our home and to become a part of these traditions. Some of our favorite Christmas Traditions is to drive around the cities to look at the Christmas lights, attend the Holiday Exhibit on the 8th floor of Macy's and go to the Holidazzle parade between Thanksgiving and Christmas and attending mass on Christmas Eve as a family. In addition, we look forward to learning about traditions our future son or daughter would like to incorporate into our family.

Parenting Experience

Our parenting experiences include the experience of raising our child for the last 11 years. My husband and I both did a lot of babysitting growing up, and his mother ran an in-home daycare for over 15 years. As parents, we have a lot of experience caring for and raising a child with special needs.

Our daughter has a medical condition with her eye, called Amblyopia, which we have obtained Speech, Occupational and Vision Therapy over the last several years for delayed motor skills as a result of the eye condition and to work on her listening and communication skills to assist her in school and with her eye sight. She was also diagnosed with Asperger's, part of the Autism Spectrum. For Asperger's assistance, we have attended several years of occupational therapy, speech therapy, and individual and group skills classes to help her with the Asperger's. We are committed to obtaining the necessary services from the appropriate professionals to assist Campbelle with her special needs. We have worked closely with her school to get the extra services she needs to ensure all her needs are met, and the school has been very accommodating.

Campbelle has been challenged with her Amblyopia and Asperger's her whole life, and as her parents we believe all of the Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, Vision Therapy and Individual and Group Skills classes have helped her with these special challenges. She continues to make strides and new accomplishments every day. She has found her calling as an artist, author, and a very talented and fast swimmer. When we are matched with a child, we want the child, their case worker, and everyone important in that child's life that we will treat this child as our own and ensure the child gets all the therapy and special services they need to ensure the best possible outcome for their life as well. We will love our new child adopted into our family as we love our own biological child.

Support

Our support system includes Tim's parents and his sister and husband that all live within 20 minutes from our home. My family lives about 2 hours away, but we get down to my parents as often as we can. Tim's parents are always excited to watch Campbelle when we need them to, and they are very excited to have another grandchild added to the family. We have a close-knit tight group of parents we are close with from our church and school community, since the school is connected to the church. We have many great family members and friends we can rely on in a time of need.

One thing as parent Tim and I try to do is a special 'date night' with our daughter. We go to movies, out to dinner, bowling and many other things as a family, but we also try to take a night or two each month where Campbelle gets one-on-one time with each of us separately and we make the date night a choice of what she wants to do. We have had 'date nights' of bowling, Mall of America rides, movies, dinner, arts and crafts fairs and nature walks just to name a few. We will continue the tradition of 'date nights' with the new child we adopt into our home as well.

In addition to the date nights where each child gets the important 1:1 time with each parent individually, we spend a great deal of time together as a family - camping, attending outdoor concerts, exercising and all the adventures of the outside world. We strongly believe a family that plays together stays together!

Motivation to adopt and what the Bauer Family will bring to an adopted child

We have a loving and nurturing family and we hope to be the forever family for a child that is matched with our family. We have so much to offer a child with a lifetime of love, happiness and a to show that child that our family will be their forever family. We understand that adopting a child through foster care means the child may have been in a difficult, even unimaginable situation, and they may not fully understand adoption or what adoption means. We are committed to welcoming a child into our home, showing them they will always be safe and loved, have a big sister to play with, a dog that will love them unconditionally and a safe home that will be their home forever and always with their forever family!

One of the first things I told my husband when we were still dating but started to discuss the future was that it has always been a dream of mine to adopt. We have our beautiful daughter, Campbelle, who is biological. We tried for almost 6 years to have another child and decided God has sent our life in another direction, the path of adopting a child that needs a loving, stable, nurturing and forever home. Not only are Tim and I motivated to adopt, but Campbelle is so excited and asks everyday if we have learned of a child that would be a match for our family....and her new sister or brother! As we travel the path of our adoption journey, we believe the right child is out there for our, but the waiting is the hardest part!

I (Kia) was adopted as an infant, and when I was 18 I found my birth parents. I have a great relationship with both birth parents and through these relationships I have 4 additional brothers, 1 addition sister and many aunts, uncles and cousins. Keeping in touch with birth family is an important decision, one both Tim and I support. If the child we adopt wants to maintain a relationship with siblings, family and foster family, we are open to that and committed to make it work for the child welcomed into our home. We believe my adoption story is a unique experience, one that will enable me as our child's forever mother the opportunity to bond with our new child. Having a unique situation, such as adoption, in common is a great way to bond. The adoption experience and bond will help keep open communication with him/her and let them know I know first hand how they feel.

Please consider our family to be the 'Forever Family' for the child you are helping find their 'Forever Home and Family'!