Here are the pictures I wanted to include on the last post but couldn't upload.

These pictures are of all of us with Jordan.  Just wanted to show how much their baby brother was adored by all of them.

                                   Brooklyn adoring her little brother as he stared intently at her.

                                                Me and Jordan at one of our hospital stays.

                                                          Tyler and Jordan

                                                                     Brooklyn again.

                                  Aaron loved to get in the crib and hang out with his brother.

                                      
                                     

                                        
                                         My mom and sister came up for Jordan's baby blessing.

These pictures belong in our Vacation and Travel section.  Below are just a glimpse of some of the things we do with our kids.  We like adventure and love introducing them to new things.
                             

                               Selfie of Mike and I against a cool looking tree trunk at the coast

                  This are pictures of a road trip we took down the Oregon Coast to Northern California

Redwood Forest

                We found a wildlife Safari where the kids were able to pet and some of the animals.

                                                   Oregon Zoo trip with the kids Aunt Caiti

                                My kids LOVE their dress ups- always an adventure going on

                                                    A day at pump it up with the cousins

                                  For Spring Break our friends have a home on the Oregon Coast
            We spent time at the Ocean and the Aquarium as well as watched glass blowing artists.
                                                                         Fun trip!

                                We have jet ski's and spend a lot of days in the summer at the lake.

 Our kids all play sports.  This is Aaron with his best friend and 1st grade teacher who came to watch.

     All the kids had horse back riding lessons this year.  It was a ton of fun for all of them.

We love to hike.  This was one of our hikes this fall.

Welcome to our Blog!  We are the Janeway Family.  My name is Heidi and I am starting this blog to introduce our family to those that are looking to place their child up for adoption.  We know that it has to be a hard and difficult time in your life with some tough choices to make.  We hope that as you are looking for a family for your child you will take time to get to know our family and see if we could be a good fit for you and your child.

This is our family:

Ryan, Heidi, Michael (13), Brooklyn (11), Tyler (9) and Aaron (6).

It is hard to know where to start our story.  I don't want to bore you with too many details but want to give enough of an introduction you can get to know us and can always ask more questions if I don't cover something that may be important for you to know.  So here it is-

Ryan and I were married in August of 2001.  We are going strong on our 15th year of marriage.  We met while Ryan was finishing up college. We both came from some good homes and have a strong sense of family.  Currently we live close to Ryan's family in Oregon.  My family is in Utah and we get to visit 1-2 times a year and we are always begging for them to come up and visit us as well.  We both have good size families and the kids have a lot of cousins!

OUR HOME
We live in a small town in Oregon about 25 minutes west of Portland.  This last April we moved to our dream location.  We bought a home on 10 acres.  We have a decent size home with a shop, a barn, a big backyard and it backs up to some forest space.  It is absolutely beautiful!  It is the type of space I always dreamed to have for my kids.  A place where they can run, play and explore, learn how to work and have a place they can have animals and a place where all there friends will want to come play.  So far in the last 9 months this has proven to be it!  In our short amount of time here 2 of my kids raised pigs for fair and 1 for our family.  We have 15 chickens, 2 cats Milo and Dash and a dog named Shiloh (German Shepherd).  Because we are not farmers per-say with lots of farm equipment, we have turned the shop into a gym for us and a kids play area with air hockey, basketball and ping pong.  We feel a little spoiled after living in a neighborhood with a very small yard.  It's the type of space we have always dreamed coming home to away from the busyness of life.

      This is our front yard.  You can see the garden, barn and shop.  It's my favorite view.

                This is our backyard and the kids with Ryan and his parents playing flag football.

                                 Ryan is taking a picture of us last April the day we got the key.

                    This is Shiloh (who by the way is not allowed on beds but minds real well;)

                                   This is Dash and Milo.  They think they rule the house.

                                       This is Ryan and our nephew Everett with our pigs.

                                             This is Brooklyn with her Fair Pig Chloe.

 These are our recent chicks. Now minus a few casualties (Shiloh and ?) we have a total of 15.

OUR RELIGION
We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I mention this because it is a big part of who we are and our life.  We attend church weekly and are very involved in our religion and in our community.  We have a strong testimony/belief in our Savior Jesus Christ.  We raise our kids to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and teach them to want to be like Him.  To be kind, honest, trustworthy, have integrity, a desire to learn and become the best they can be.   Overall we try hard to be good people and are trying to raise our kids to be the same.

EDUCATION
Ryan and I both have bachelor degrees and Ryan is working on getting his Masters.  Education is important to us.  Ryan graduated from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah in Finance.  He has built and sold businesses since we were married.  He currently has a medical software company helping small medical companies from all over.  He most recently just started a DNA lab.  He keeps busy with his companies but balances them well with family life.   I graduated from Utah Valley University emphasis in Community Health and Business Management.  Ryan and I started our first business together and worked me out when children started coming.  For the last 9-10 years I have been able to stay home and be there to raise our kids.

WHY ADOPTION?
That's probably a big question when we are already blessed with so many kids.  First of all, we both came from big families and loved it so we wanted the same.  The reason or the journey that has led us to adoption came from a tragedy in our home. We had our 5th child Jordan in October 2012.   He was born with CHARGE syndrome and had a rare disease called SCID, where he had no immune system.  When he got his first virus at 5 months old, he couldn't fight it.  His brother was a match in blood type and donated his marrow to Jordan.  Unfortunately we were too late and Jordan passed away on July 1st, 2013.  Jordan's passing has left a hole in our family.  We miss him.  We decided we could never replace Jordan, but we do want to add another child to our family.  After a miscarriage our doctor advised us to reconsider having another child.  The likelihood of me having another handicap child is high.  We decided to take her advise.  We didn't think it would be fair to put our children through a repeat of what we have been through.   However, we feel as a family that we still have a lot of love to give and decided adoption would be a perfect choice for us.  At first as I looked at sites I felt guilty asking for a baby when I have so many already.  But I soon realized that we have something different to offer.  Your child would have a big family full of children at the perfect age who would love and adore and dote on her/him.  In fact I would probably have to fight to get my time in.    She/he would be very well taken care of and loved to pieces.  I am sure being the baby of the family would be spoiled, in a good way of course.

OUR CHILDREN
Michael our oldest is in 8th grade.  He is a fun kid with lots of energy.  He is full of fun ideas and loves filling his time with basketball, football, american ninja warrior, working out, the dog and piano.
Brooklyn is 11 and is in 6th grade.  She is a little mom and adds the perfect girl tone in our home full of boys.  She loves books, piano, writing stories, Pinterest (where she finds project after project to entertain her and her younger brother), her bike, basketball, the cats and dog, and reading and more reading.
Tyler is 9 and is in 3rd grade.  He loves reading, football, basketball, animals, exploring, scouts, PS4, tolerates the piano and loves teasing his younger brother. He is a really sweet boy and looks out for others around him.
Aaron is 6.  He is our baby of the family right now and gets a lot of attention. However, he claims he is willing to share the light.  He is a fun and loving boy.  Always full of great ideas.  He loves art and creating.  He loves being the guinea pig for his sisters projects and is willing to do whatever she says.  He loves basketball like the rest of his siblings.

That is a brief description of my children.  They are your normal kids.  They fight with each other but also love each other and look out for one another.  They all have their unique gifts and talents as well as struggles. As parents we try our best to help them improve in those areas.  Definitely not easy but rewarding.  Overall the kids are happy, kind and respectful.  We love them dearly.

They have been through a unique trial with their younger brother.  I was very proud of them how they handled things.  When the going got tough they buckled down and were amazing.  Some of my fondest memories is seeing how they handled their brothers handicap.  He came home from the hospital with a trachea that needed to be constantly suctioned.  They didn't blink an eye.  They adored him and helped take care of him.  I will include pictures that show the love they had for him.  It was special.  Through that experience it has made me want another sibling for them so bad.  It is neat to see your older children be so caring and loving and forget about themselves for a bit.  And they embraced and loved him no matter his differences.

(Photos will be shared on another post)

FREE TIME/VACATIONS
Ryan and I have always traveled with our children.  They are pros in airports.  We visit my family frequently in Utah and Ryan's uncle and grandparents in Southern California.  Which of course we mix in with a lot of fun!  We've been to Hawaii, Canada, Caymen islands, and Seattle.  This last year we took a tour back east with our older 2.  This year we plan our plan is Washington DC.  We also have taken some fun road trips as well.  Last year we went along the Oregon Coast and Northern California to the Redwoods.  The road trips believe it or not have been the most fun!  Impromtu can be a lot of fun.  We love the outdoors.  We love to hike, bike, go to the beach, canoe, jet ski, boating, etc.  I think that is why we like our land so much.  There are places to hike, bike and explore.

(Pictures will be shared on another post)

HOLIDAYS
What can we say, we love celebrating holidays.  We love birthdays and pretty much celebrate every major holiday and then some.  April Fools is definitely included.  I think we do fun and meaningful things with the kids.

                                                             Aaron lost his first tooth.

                          Tyler 's birthday, air soft in the picture below and him hitting the piniata.

                                       Just an example of our fun Halloween meal this year.

                    Halloween with some of our favorite friends, getting ready to go trick or treating.

   This year Aaron wanted a "Hulk Smash" party.  So this is what we came up with.  It turned out to be a ton of fun.  The kids enjoyed "smashing" with hulk gloves a mini city that we built and rebuilt:)

PARENTING STYLE
If it were me, I would want to know what kind of parenting style being used.  Basically, I think Ryan and I compliment each other.   He is more disciplined and I am more mellow.  We are not yellers.  We raise our voices when needed but don't believe in screaming or yelling.  We don't beat our kids.    Our method we use most the time are natural consequences, time outs, and reward systems earning screen time/privileges and taking away privileges if needed.

One of the things we do with our kids are dates.  We trade off and make sure each child has mom and dad time.  Since we have 4 we have to divide and conquer.  We each take one child.  Ryan also started something with our kids from a young age to encourage open communication.  He meets with each child once a month.  They go in the office and just chat.  He asks them about their goals, school, friends etc.  They are free to ask any questions that come across their minds.  He never has had to direct the conversation.  The kids have loved this time and love telling about so many different things.  With me being home I get lots of little opportunities with each of the kids.

This is all I can think of to share about us.  If you have any questions, please let me know.  I am happy to answer anything I can.  We have a home study done that has references from our friends who know us best that we are happy to share as well.

Thanks so much for taking time to getting to know us and hopefully considering us to adopt your child.

Heidi

***One thing about me, my computer skills are not as good as the rest of the family.  I am having trouble loading some pictures so I will add posts to share some of those.  I am going to select a variety of ones that will show what we have been up to this year.