Shannon & LeNita are waiting to welcome a child into their heart and home through open adoption.
Learn more about them!
Hello!
We’re excited you want to learn a little more about our family to help in making this decision. Currently, we are a family of three: Shannon, LeNita and Ariadne. Adopting is something we’ve wanted for a long time and are excited to go on this journey with you. We believe we can offer a child so much love, warmth and community and this would not be possible without you. We can only try to express the depth of gratitude we have for you making such a difficult choice. Without you it would not be possible for us to share our lives with another child, so for that, we thank you. We hope that we are able to welcome your child to our family!
Shannon & LeNita
Our Love Story
Shannon and I met when I was 26 and he, 24. We met in 2008 through a mutual friend who was in law school with Shannon and curiously enough, after meeting, we discovered we had attended the same high school and college at the same time. We met after striking up a conversation about working in sports and have talked with each other every day since. We were engaged in 2011, married in 2013 and bought our home in 2015. Both Shannon and I come from very close families, so having a family of our own has been a wish since we found each other. We have been blessed with one little girl and now one of our greatest hopes is to give our daughter a sibling.
About Us
About LeNita
LeNita was born and raised in Chicago but lived in Washington, D.C. and Maryland for a total of nine years of her life. She grew up in a two-parent household with an older sister and younger brother. She earned degrees in Business and Sports Administration and has had the opportunity to work for interesting employers including WGN and the Chicago Bears. She currently works in the public sector in finance and although work is important, spending time with family is her priority. Her favorite pastimes are reading, watching movies and traveling. In the summer, you can often find her sitting outside in the sun and relaxing with a book (when time permits). Her hope is to enrich her children and family in whatever manner she can. She hopes that she can extend this care to your child if you choose our family.
About Shannon
Shannon was also born and raised in Chicago and spent a total of 9+ years living in the Washington, D.C. area with a year and a half stint in Atlanta, GA in between his time in D.C. He received a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a law degree and is currently an attorney for a federal government agency. When he is not working, he enjoys spending time with his family and painting. Shannon is his mom’s only child but the youngest of four by his dad. He also has seven nieces and one nephew. He has a wealth of aunts and uncles around and a multitude of first cousins. Even better, the majority of them that are of age have children themselves. This has provided our daughter with many cousins and playmates. However, no matter how close she is with her cousins, nothing compares to the relationship amongst siblings.
Our Child, Ariadne
Our daughter, Ariadne (Arie), is four years old and currently in preschool. She is a very loving and affectionate kid and is full of energy. She is excited to enter Kindergarten in the fall. Arie is probably the busiest person in our household right now. In addition to preschool, she attends Ice Skating, Gymnastics and Spanish lessons throughout the year. She loves drawing, painting, Frozen (both 1 and 2) along with other Disney movies, playing board games and being outside. She is VERY excited to have a sibling. She has been talking about it repeatedly for the last few months. She is looking forward to sharing her toys and books with her new sibling and also teaching them things like reading. Arie wanted to add something in her own words too: “We want a new sister or brother!”
Our Home & Community
We live in a bungalow in the suburbs. We have four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. Each child would have their own room. In fact, we already have the nursery ready and waiting for the new baby’s arrival and are excited to add personal touches for him or her. We have a finished basement and decent size backyard. In past summers, we have put inflatable pools and splash pads in the back for our daughter. We are also near two playgrounds; one of which is attached to the elementary school. It is a relatively diverse suburb with easy access to lots of food, shopping and activities. We have multiple family members who live within 20 minutes of us.
Our Families
We’re grateful that much of our family lives in the area. We spend a lot of our free time with our families. The best memories of our childhood include our families and the many things we did together. There were many dance recitals, basketball or Little League games, graduation and birthday parties among other things we experienced as kids growing up. Through it all, we had lots of family around to support us, cheer us on, comfort us or whatever was needed. We can’t wait for another child to join our family and experience the love and support of our big families. In fact, we started a tradition called New Food Night where we get together with family and friends and each of us brings a new dish to share with the group. We also have old traditions that we continue such as traveling to Mississippi every summer with our extended family and celebrating holidays with whichever family member is hosting. As Shannon mentioned, there are a multitude of cousins around our daughter’s age ranging from 8 months to about 8 years old. There is no shortage of playmates at family events. One of our greatest joys would be expanding our family to not only give our daughter a sibling but welcome your child into our family to share in the laughter, memories and togetherness in our lives.
Just Having Fun
Our favorite pastimes are traveling, reading (LeNita), painting (Shannon) and raising our daughter. We also like watching movies, listening to music and exploring our surroundings. When we aren’t attending a family function, we often let our daughter choose our weekend activities which result in watching (a lot of) Disney movies, playing board games, outside water activities (weather permitting) and finding different seasonal activities or festivals/events to attend (i.e. Pumpkin Fest, ChrisKindle Market, Air & Water Show, Auto Show, etc). In the fall, it is very likely you’ll find all of us watching football games on Sundays as we are big sports fans in this house. Although some of these things we did before we had children, we also include our daughter and look forward to including any future members of our family.
Thank You
We feel that we have so much love to give and we hope we are blessed to be able to share it by adding another member to our family. We want to sincerely thank you for considering us in this monumental decision. We hope that what we’ve shared helps you in choosing us as the family for your child.
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