Mike & Molly

Welcome! We are Mike and Molly (and our son, Mac!) We are honored that you are taking the time to get to know us. In the following pages we hope you will learn about what loving parents we could be for your child. We truly admire you for choosing adoption and we think it is an incredibly loving and selfless decision. It would be a dream come true to become parents again through the miracle of adoption. We have enjoyed every part of parenthood so far, even the teething nights and the funky diapers. By considering us as parents for your child, you are giving us the chance to realize this dream. We can never fully express our gratitude for the lifelong gift of a child.

We are excited about becoming parents again through adoption and becoming a family of four.

Our son MacReady (Mac) is very social and very excited at the idea of having a sibling and co-superhero to fight bad guys and help people.

We also have our dog Ruby who loves to cuddle and be part of what the whole family is doing. She too would be thrilled with a new addition to the family!

While we were not able to have biological children of our own, adoption was always part of our family plan. We will love and support this child. As a family we think of ourselves as a team doing things together. We will work to provide this child (our newest team member) with a life filled with adventure, story-telling, travel, family, laughter, and love.

Our Story: We met over 20 years ago at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, California. We were both working on a movie called “Odd Couple 2: Traveling Light”. We started up a friendship that is the foundation of our relationship today.

We were married 15 years ago on Valentine’s Day.B Growing up we had friends and family who have been adopted. Several of Molly’s cousins have been adopted.

We have been able to see first-hand the joy and happiness brought to families. Having a family has always been our dream. We had tried a few means of having children and our journey has led us here. In 2016 we adopted our first son and it changes our lives in so many ways. We feel so lucky to be parents to him. We come from such big families ourselves and know that our family has room for another special child.

Thank you so much for helping us fulfill our destiny of becoming the family we always wanted to be!

We are an active couple with lots of energy and love to share. We pack our weekends full of fun and family time. We enjoy going to the movies, spending time with friends, soccer practices, swimming in our pool, and walking our dog. We also love to host friends at our house and are known for throwing great barbeques (Molly is the chief BBQer). Traveling is something we love, but we are homebodies and often can’t find a better place to be in the world than home together watching a great movie.

The world is also important to us – exploring other cultures is an interest for us. One of our favorite places we have visited is the Netherlands. We look forward to sharing our adventures with our children!

Our Life Together is full of…
• Laughter
• Adventure
• Weiner Dogs!
• Friends & Family
• Music & Concerts
• Hugs & Love
• Celebrating Holidays

Molly & Mike’s Hobbies and Interests:
• Board games – We have a huge collection of games…close to one thousand! MacReady has started his own collection. He loves helping to set up games and then tries to show others how to play.

• Movies – We both have fond memories of our families taking us to the movies, which engrained in us the love for film. Whether we are at the theater or watching a DVD at home, we always enjoy seeing something new.

• Reading – Both of us like to read. Molly enjoys fantasy/sci-fi, Mike would rather read philosophy and other non-fiction works.

• Baking – (This is more Molly) Molly loves to bake and during the holidays she hosts a cookie baking party. Everyone comes over to bake and frost cookies. We always end up with so many treats! MacReady loves to help decorate cookies.

• BBQing/Pool parties – We love hosting get-togethers with our friends/families. We’ll fire up the grill and swim all day during the hot summer months!

My Wife, Molly – Written by Mike: Molly is the sweetest and strongest person I know. I feel extremely lucky to have married my best friend. One thing that always makes me smile is how much she loves Halloween. Every year, we have fun dressing in costume, going to haunted houses, trick or treating with MacReady and decorating our own house!

She has a wonderful sense of humor, loves to laugh, and doesn’t take herself too seriously. We have a good time together just goofing around with each other. We get the biggest kick out of being able to make each other laugh. But watch out when we play board games – she gets very competitive. She loves to win and often does. We enjoy having board game nights and learning new games.
She is really good at making our house warm and welcoming for everyone. From the decorating to the food and hosting.

Molly loves to cook and bake. Our friends ask every Christmas if they can please be on the list to get some of her famous frosted sugar cookies. She will make hundreds because she enjoys making all those cookie lovers happy. The house smells amazing when she bakes. For her birthday, she loves to go to Disneyland. It’s one of our traditions.

I love seeing her as a Mom. She loves unconditionally and has endless patience when it comes to our child. She is already teaching him her baking secrets.

Molly’s Career: Molly works full time running a Customer Support Team at Netflix. Her company produces content for an online streaming service. It is fun for her to be at a studio as she is still close to the business she started in. She is passionate about creating a caring environment for her staff and for her clients. The company she works for is innovative and inclusive. They are very family orientated allowing for flexible schedules. She is able to work from home as needed.

My Husband, Mike – Written by Molly: He is my best friend and the love of my life. No one can make me laugh like he does. He is kind, generous, and supportive. He loves movies. Loves to watch them, talk about them, and write them. His favorite is horror movies, which we enjoy together. Now of course we watch Nightmare Before Christmas as it is MacReady’s favorite movie. Mike will plan out which movies we will watch together on the weekends when we have a night in. I never know what movie is coming on until it starts!

Mike is a big music lover. He takes us to concerts any chance he can get. His favorite musician to see in concert is Alice Cooper. We got a chance to meet Alice Cooper one year and it was a blast. Mike created our Christmas card that year and it included us in our photo with Alice Cooper. Our friends and family are still talking about it to this day. Mike and I always plan out a fun and creative Christmas card. It’s one of our traditions.

He is the smartest person I know and he loves to learn. If he doesn’t know something, he will get a book about it so he can learn about it. One year we were going to travel to the Netherlands. He got a book to teach himself Dutch. When we got to Holland and he tried to speak Dutch, we quickly discovered that everyone spoke English. He laughed that they likely couldn’t take listening to him stumble through a greeting and saved him by replying in English.

I have always admired how he makes family a priority. When I first met Mike he was planning a surprise trip to visit his mom. He was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. It is hard for him to be far away from his family, but he is so committed to them and making sure we spend time together with them. In Mike’s book, there is always time for family.

He is warm and generous. Every year we have a big Thanksgiving celebration. As well as our family coming, he invites people who are not originally from Los Angeles to dinner – so they have some place to eat their holiday dinner away from their families.

Mike is a great dad. He and our son love to read together and spend time talking about their days each night. He is very loving and caring with children. He has always been a big part of his nephew’s life. His nephew spends time with us every summer and the two of them pal around. He looks out for his nephew and is his guide and support system during any situation.

Mike’s Career: Mike loves working on set! Mike works full time in the film and television industry. He is an assistant director, dealing with actor’s schedules, paperwork, and other “moving gears” on a tv/film set. He loves how every show/feature is different – he’s always meeting new people and figuring out new solutions in different scenarios. As we have started our family, he now only works in town instead of traveling on different projects that take him around the country. Family comes first and our best days are the ones where we are all together.

Our Home: Home is when we’re all together! We live in a beautiful, safe and family friendly community in Los Angeles, CA.

Our neighborhood is family friendly. We have playdates with our friends next door. Our children love playing with cars together. We love going for walks around our home during the holidays and seeing all of the wonderful decorations.

We feel lucky to live within the school district for one of the best elementary schools in L.A. There are many parks, museums and free activities for kids within a short drive or within walking distance from our home. Plus, we are only 40 minutes from the beach!

In our home, we have a very open floor plan. Anytime we are home, you will likely find us together in the main family room. There we spend time watching movies, reading, playing, and enjoying company. The kitchen opens into this room, so Molly can cook while we hang out.

During the summer, we spend time in the pool and the backyard. We have a lemon tree and like to make homemade lemonade. We have a nectarine tree as well, but it seems that only the squirrels enjoy that one.

Our Son: MacReady – big brother in training! Our three-year old son MacReady (Mac) joined our family through adoption. He has the greatest smile and is so funny. He loves to play and read books. He loves animals. While he loves our dog, his Auntie’s cats hold a special place in his heart. He already has a few books picked out that he wants to read to his future sibling and is talking about the adventures they will go on.

We love MacReady’s birth mother. She is very special. Smart and funny like him. We were gifted with three days in the hospital with her when he was born. We had no idea what relationship we would have with her over time. We wanted to respect what her wishes were for that. We allowed the relationship to grow in the way it needed to, but are so thrilled that we are connected with her to this day. We send pictures and chat regularly.

We want MacReady to be proud of being adopted. To be loved that much by so many is very special. We have always talked to him about his adoption. We made an adoption book of photos of all of us from his big first day. As he is so young, we thought reading his story would make that connection stronger and it has.

Meet our Village – Friends & Family: We have built a family out of our nearby relatives and our closest friends – combined they provide us with an abundance of love and support that is always part of our lives.

Molly’s sister lives nearby. We feel lucky we get to see her so often. She lives near the beach and we visit with her for the county fair there every year for her birthday. She and MacReady love hanging out together.

Much of our family lives out of state – in the Midwest and the east coast. However, we are in constant contact with them and try to see them as much as we can.
Grandma may live in Ohio but she is a constant presence in our house. We Facetime with her every few days and she is always sending treats to the house. She and Papa are so loving and kind and the right kind of silly for our gang. They can’t wait to be grandparents again.

We have a white Christmas every year when we travel to Ohio to visit family. It’s tradition when we are there to have a family potluck and board game night – about fifty relatives are always in attendance! It’s so much fun and all of the cousins look forward to it every year.

We have a tight knit set of our friends in the Los Angeles area. They are an equally important part of the family we’ve built. A week doesn’t go by where we don’t spend time with them. We even spend holidays and birthdays together. They are part of every big life event we have as well as just helping us around the house. They are all very excited about our upcoming family addition!

Our Dog, Ruby: Dogs are a great part of our lives. We have one dog now and she is super sweet and silly. Ruby would love another snuggle buddy to share her love with.

Her favorite activities are:
• Helping us take a nap on the couch
• Snuggling with Mac
• Greeting our friends as they come in the door

Our Hopes & Dreams as Parents: We have so much love to give and cannot wait to grow our family. We look forward to sharing our values and the lessons we have learned with our children. Values that include the importance of working hard for what you have, learning to appreciate the simple things in life, and treating others with kindness and respect.

Our Promise to You:
• We will honor your gift and provide a good life
• This child will know joy and unconditional love
• To instill values of honesty, integrity, love, and kindness
• To love your child completely and unconditionally in good times and bad
• There will be lots of silliness and joy. We will laugh and be silly, and spend lots of time playing
• Our home will be a happy and safe place
• We will teach forgiveness and will show patience
• We will raise your child to be a good citizen of the world, being kind and open to others
• We will make sure your child receives the best possible education
• We will lovingly teach your child to swim, paint, dance, sing, read, write, hug, play board games, and how to be kind to animals

A Special Message to You: Thank you so much! We know that there is a baby out there waiting to be born into our family, and we hope that a baby’s mother will find us soon!

Thank you for reading our letter. We promise you that if we are lucky enough to raise your child, he or she will know how much you love them, how much we value you and that they will have a life full of love and adventure