Waiting Parents: Colten and Madison
Hi, We are Colten, Madison, Jude and Titus. We are so grateful to connect with you here. If we were sitting in person, I imagine us sitting across the dinner table sharing a meal as we get to know each other. Who you are, what you love, how you got here. Even though we don’t know you yet, we have sat many times and talked about who would read these words and prayed for the chance to meet. We hope that these pictures and stories give just a glimpse of who we really are, and we sincerely hope we get the chance to know you.
We feel so grateful to have shared so much life together. This year we are celebrating six years of marriage and 23 years of knowing one another. We met in Kindergarten and have been friends ever since.
What Madison loves about Colten:
Immediately with him, you can sense his selflessness and his love for others. He is the calm and steady presence of our home, the confident leader of our family, the baby whisperer, the problem fixer, the encourager, the photographer and grill master. As he intentionally cares for and raises our sons, I can see his tender heart towards others and love of God’s word beginning to be modeled by our children.
Colten works for a playground company as a project manager, and works on staff at our local church as the youth director.
What Colten loves about Madison:
She is the heartbeat of our family. Madison is intentional, tender, loving, thoughtful and puts others’ needs before her own. She constantly is serving our family and those around her. She is constantly giving out cuddles, reading the bible to our kids, kissing ouchies and going on new adventures with our boys. She is patient in her care for our kids despite fussy days or a season of colic. Our boys are momma’s boys, and there is a great reason for it.
Madison is a part time stay at home mom, and a part time mechanical engineer in the aerospace industry.
We have two precious BOYS, Jude and Titus. Jude is our loving and personable 3 year old. Jude loves being outside – playing sports, digging in the dirt, enjoying the sunshine. He loves to learn and listen to us read books. Titus is our 1.5 year old who is just as wild as he is cute. He is running everywhere, learning new words every day, and loves books, music and snacks.
We love playing outside with our kids, drinking coffee, grilling out in the backyard, reading and going on road trips. We love hosting family and friends as often as we can, and making memories around the dinner table. Colten loves photography. He can always be found with a camera in his hand, capturing memories of our boys and our friends. Madison loves to be on the go. I am the type of person who is up early and ready to go on a walk with the kids when the sun is up. I am always down to explore somewhere new and love to get out in nature as much as possible. You can find me packing a picnic lunch to eat at the zoo or strapping the kids in to walk the closest trail.
In our home, our favorite tradition is Saturday morning Breakfast. It is such a special time to sit around the table together and enjoy a BIG breakfast. We also love family road trips. Going to explore somewhere new and beautiful with our boys or with friends brings us so much joy. We have explored creeks and trails in Northern Arkansas, gone to The Gathering Place in Tulsa, gone to camp in Glorieta, New Mexico and more. We also love to celebrate birthdays BIG in our home. Nothing fancy, but birthdays are a big deal. A time to celebrate all God is doing in each person in our home! One thing you should know about us is we will NEVER pass up an opportunity to have people in our home. Multiple times a week you will find people stopping in to share a meal or dessert. Our kids wait by the door eager to greet whoever is coming in!
We have one dog, Sadie. The first one to greet the boys when they wake in the morning, ready to give kisses until they laugh and get out of bed. She is our giant, energetic, fluffy Aussiedoodle. She is a protector of the babies and takes her job very seriously. She is sure to alert the home if any mailman or squirrel comes too close to the boys.
We LOVE our home. A place of refuge, safety, and comfort. Filled with love, good books, way too many toys, and a sweet dog. We have a huge front porch where we play outside on a rainy day, or share long conversations in the summer nights. We have a large backyard that we love to play sports in, pretending to hit home runs over the fence and chasing our dog around. We have a cozy living room where we sit together to read books or hop up on the couch to watch a sports game together. We have 4 bedrooms and playroom with a lot of windows that let the perfect morning light in. We love that we live 5 minutes from multiple nature trails and the zoo, which we visit at least once a week. We live about 10 minutes from our church and near many of our close friends.
Because we have spent so much of our life together, so have both of our families. It is really such a special thing that our parents have also known each other for more than 20 years and are close friends who live just a mile apart. We currently live a few hours from our parents, but distance doesn’t stop us from being together. We love hosting family in our home and the boys LOVE a trip to see grandparents. It is the most fun, intentional time when we get together with family. Our families are so generous, caring and supportive. We couldn’t do life without them!
Since before we were married, we both imagined our family growing through adoption. We ultimately desire to share what we have received. We believe it is a wonderful gospel reality that because of Jesus Christ, the bible says that we are adopted as sons and daughters into God’s family. Because of what God has done for us through this spiritual adoption, God has given us a desire to share his overflowing love and care through the adoption of children. Jude says he wants to adopt because he loves having more babies in our family 🙂