Currently Unavailable - Potential Match Pending
Lia & GeorgesDEAR POTENTIAL BIRTH FAMILY
We would very much like to offer our thanks for taking some time to read a bit about us. It is difficult to put all of who we are on paper with just a few words and pictures, but we do hope that with all of the decisions you have to make and all the things that you have to consider in this season of your life, that this small space will help to give you an honest peak into who we are as people, parents and most importantly as a family.. HOW WE BEGAN... We first met each other while on a skiing trip in Whistler BC. Georges who is an avid skier was on vacation to get some great skiiing in with his friends and Lia was with her friend who was going to try to teach her to snowboard. Lia had never been skiing or snowboarding and found the whole experience exhausting and difficult but then she met Georges while they were out one evening was quite taken with this kind and charming gentleman. When it was time to say goodbye, we both agreed to keep in touch and even though we lived very far apart ..Lia being in Seattle and Georges being on the other side of the continent in another country.. We started emailing each other daily and calling and having long talks on the telephone. Even though it was a long distance and not the normal way to get to know each other in person, we truly had a special bond as we talked and shared so much with each other. It was so special to have that time to really get to know each other's thoughts and hopes and feelings. We both had crazy busy careers that didn't allow us much free time so we decided to travel to visit each other occasionally over the next two years. Finally after two years of long distance dating we decided that it was time to move forward and Lia made the exciting decision that she wanted to be the one to try something new and make the big move to Ottawa. One short month later Georges proposed and shortly after that we married by the banks of the Ottawa River. A year later we planned a huge party for everyone that all of Georges and Lia's family and friends were able to fly in for and attend. Georges’ uncle, who is a Priest, did a Blessing and prayer for us. It was such a wonderful time in our lives.. ALL ABOUT LIA Hello! My name is Evangelia, named in the Greek tradition after my Grandmother ..my friends and family call me Lia. I was born in Seattle Washington. My father is originally from Athens, Greece and my mother was a born and raised in Seattle Washington. Growing up I did not have the typical childhood that most of my peers had since my parents divorced when I was very young. I did spend some time occasionally with my father and he was able to bring me to visit my family in Greece a few times in my childhood. But for the majority of the time I was with my mother who was very burdened as a single mother. She did not have any kind of family support and had a very difficult childhood herself, so unfortunately she did not have the abilities to care for me well. She passed away when I was 21. Even though I had many struggles at a young age, I did however have a few very important people that came into my life who were able to give me just enough of the kind of love and encouragement that I most needed. Their names are Bob & Lauretta and I have always called them my Godparents, through them I learned that family is a word that can mean many different things and that my family can look very different from other people’s family, but that the most important thing for it to have is Love! As I grew older and during my formative years in high school I was very eager to start working on my weekends off to earn money. My first job was working in the Kingdome where the Seattle Seahawks football team played. Eventually I started working with my Father who had a small wholesale bakery. I finished my schooling and then decided that I wanted to pursue my love of cooking with a culinary degree. After I accomplished this I worked for a few more years at my fathers bakery before moving to Canada. While in Ottawa I have had many wonderful experiences working in the cities top culinary spots from baking at 3 tarts to working with chocolate at Stubbe Chocolatier and then finally holding Pastry Chef positions in such places as Benitz Bistro, Les Fougeres and Restaurant Eighteen. What Inspires me: I am a creative person. I love to work with my hands ..making wedding cakes, our sons birthday cakes, organizing our home, gardening, photography, cooking, baking, and watercolour which I am currently taking classes for. Although my Father had a bakery to support himself his real passion was music having studied at Cornish School of the Arts, my Father has been a big influence for music as he has surrounded me with a rich knowledge in all kinds of beautiful music such as Jazz, Acoustic, Folk, Greek, Latin etc. This love of music for me has translated into a love of dance ..I have studied Swing Dance, Hip Hop, have performed and competed in Latin Dance and am currently beginning to study Flamenco. |
Email: esaranto@rogers.com
We live in: Ottawa, Ontario Our ages: Lia-39; George - 47 Years together: 16 years together - 14 years married Hoping to Adopt: Pets: two cats Meli & Leo Occupations: Lia - Stay at home Mom/Pastry Chef; Georges - Senior Mechanical Engineer 
Adoption Worker: Lori Rosove 613-680-0911
Tel: (613) 680-0911 E-mail: www.adoptionsource.ca (contact form on website to fill out) |
Physically I am not a super athletic person, but I do love running and casually biking in and around our city. And the one thing that really inspires and rejuvenates me the most is just being in nature ..hiking, strolling, canoeing, camping, and cross country skiing through the forest. These are the things I love to do and it brings me so much more pleasure to be able to share this all with our child and a hope be able to be able to share this with your child too! ..an appreciation for the majestic outdoors, doing activities, cooking, baking together, exposing them to beautiful music in our home ..
A few words about Lia from Georges:
"My wife Lia is such a good mother to our son, she has worked so hard and been so caring to our family. A lot of Sleepless nights staying up with our boy when he is sick, or if he just wants her to be by his side. She is a very selfless mother her focus is not for herself but for the good of her family. She never gives up and always strives to be better. She is so incredibly patient and willing to help, if for example our son who has struggled with eating well and trying new foods to eat, Lia will gently find ways to help him to taste new things in a positive way and fun way by turning it into a game or by including him in the cooking so it is enjoyable. And she is an amazing cook I feel spoiled for all of the deliscious meals we have all had together. She enriches our life and we Love her!"
Lia's Family
We don't get to see my side of the family as often as Georges family as we live far away but we try our best to travel every two or three years to either Seattle or Greece.
When we visit my family on the Seattle Peninsula, one of our many highlights is taking the 15 minute ferryboat over the vast Puget Sound waters to see my Godparents and their newly adopted 12 year old son Jason along with my God-sister and her family of 4 children who adore our son. We do lots of fun things when we visit and my Godparents live on 6 acres in the countryside with a Koi fish pond, chicken yard, an apple orchard, and huge wooden obstacle course play area that my Godfather built for all the kids.
When in Seattle we also visit my Father and his wife whom we call Papous and Yiayia. Papous is a musician and gives his Grandson free access to his amazing instrument collection (with a bit of supervision of course). Papous loves to cook us big delicious meals and we go visit Papous' bakery in downtown Seattle to watch him bake all kinds of Greek pastries, Baklava being our favourite. We have also traveled with Papous and YiaYia 3 times to Greece which has always been an enjoyable wonderful family time to visit all of our Greek family and cousins there we always have longs days at the beach with them, big Greek dinners outside while all of the kids play and we also have two diver/fisherman in the family who take us out on fun fishing adventures ..Our little boy has 5 cousins within a few years from him who are always so excited to play with him, Opa!
All of my family in Seattle, the Olympic Peninsula and Greece are so incredibly excited for the day that we adopt and bring our second child home with us, they cannot wait and ask me quite often "how it is going?" and "how soon it will be before they can meet the new member of our big loving family"? They are all praying and trying their best to patiently wait..
ALL ABOUT GEORGES
Hello! My full name is Georges Pierre I was born in Quebec City and moved to Ottawa when I was 10 years old. I grew up in a suburb of Ottawa with a very warm and loving family. My Father Jean Paul was a ship Captain he has told us many stories of his adventures when we were growing up of all of the places he visited. My mothers name is Ghislaine and she was a teacher before she had my two older sisters Pascale and Marie and myself and then she became a homemaker and stayed home to raise us while we were growing up. After completing high school I went on to study engineering at University of Ottawa and graduated with honours which has given me the opportunity to work at many great companies such as: IBM, 3M, Nortel Networks,JDS Uniphase.
I love my work and feel a deep appreciation to be able to enjoy my job. I am also an avid lover of the outdoors, backpacking, downhill skiing, xc skiing, mountain biking and most especially cycling. Every year I take part in the Ottawa and Quebec Fondo race as well as charity races to raise money for various organizations such as the Ottawa Mission. I have also enjoyed doing many team sports, having played football in college as well as joining rugby and soccer leagues as a young adult.
But out of everything what I love most of all is my time with my wife and son! Being a Father is the best job of all, it does take a lot of hard work but teaching our child how to build legos, use tools, ride a bike, being alongside him when he makes some kind of amazing discovery he wants to show me, reading him stories and putting him to bed at night are what really matter, these are great gifts that I am honoured to receive!
A few words about Georges written by Lia:
"My husband is the most authentic and honest person I have ever met, he is not afraid to be wrong and is fully confident in who he is as a man, husband and father. He is incredibly humble and kind ..he is always happy to talk to anyone and has this great way of relating to people and making them feel comfortable and appreciated. I have learned so much from him, he is always reading and has never ending amounts of facts and things to tell me about and he makes me want to be a better person because of who he is, I could not imagine this journey through life without him, he balances and cherishes our family with his wise, gentle and loving support."
GEORGES FAMILY
We get to see my family quite often, for family dinners, birthdays, and we spend all of our holidays together. They are a big fun loving ‘Joie de vivre’ adventurous French family, they all do a lot of traveling and and are a very exciting bunch. My eldest sister Pascale does International Development, working with the Canadian Government to provide aid for those lacking basic needs, specifically in Africa and South America. My other sister Marie is very artistic and owns an independent film company with her husband in Montréal they have done numerous award winning documentaries and short films. Our son has lots of Aunts and Uncles (one of whom is adopted) and cousins and we are also very blessed to have a wonderfully diverse family with French Canadian, Dominican, Haitian and Laotian cultures represented within our family. We all go on hikes together, have visits in Montreal, rent a cottage yearly for thanksgiving, and we have all gone to Cuba together. We also help each other through difficult times and take care of each other. We all hold family as a priority in our life.
Everyone in my family is impatient and excited for the day when we adopt. They cannot wait to meet and welcome in the newest member of our growing family with an enormous amount of Love!
ALL ABOUT OUR SON THÉO
Currently Theo wants to be a deep sea diver ... and he is a bit upset that he is still too young to be able to start working as a diver today!
Right now he is curious about: All of the different kinds of whales, the trap door spider, the Octonauts cartoon, different kinds of animal teeth, leaves falling from the trees in Autumn, green beans with "magic beans" inside, the arctic and all the animals that live in it, mussels and clams and he would like to try to taste them, and the Mimic Octopus which he would like to be for Halloween this year (which his Mama is currently working hard at sewing his costume to get it ready in time).
Right now he Loves: To wrestle and we have decided to let him start Judo martial arts which he is very excited about!
This year he has really gotten into soccer and played with a little kids team for three months in summer.
He is an adventurous little boy who was climbing way before he could even walk, he has loads of energy and is ready to conquer the day from the moment he gets up early in the morning. He loves to keep himself busy and always craves something to build or tinker or play imagine with.
Theo is also a bit of a prankster ... whoopy cushions are totally his thing! He loves to try to make us laugh! He cherishes his close little friendships and talks about his friends often but he also loves and very much needs his quiet time to re-charge, focus and play silently by himself. He also loves books! He has his own little library at home with all kinds of books for him to delve into ..he cherishes the time we spend readong with him getting cozy and sharing grand stories of big adventures! And most of all he cannot wait for the day that he can be a big brother! He asks us often when he will have a new brother or sister, we love seeing him with our friends' younger children he is so protective and playful with them and we know how much joy it will bring us all to have little siblings who will grow together.
OUR FAMILY & OUR FAITH
Georges was raised Roman Catholic and I (Lia) was raised Christian. We both have found in our lives a great joy and strength in our Faith in God. We share this love with our son but never in a pushy or forced way, we want him to come to his beliefs through his own journey and experience with God ..and for him to have a sense and understanding of why our beliefs have shaped us into the people we are today and for him to take from it all the good values that we hope will instill into him a desire to be humble and think of others feelings, to show kindness and love, to have a heart and mind that is wise and thoughtful. We attend Church regularly and are also involved in the local charity groups that the Church offers in our neighbourhood. One for example that we volunteer in takes place once a month,..the Church rents a local laundry mat and offers free laundry to those in need in collaboration with the local food bank. Once our son is a little older Lia also plans to bring him along when she does baking at the food bank as they encourage kids to be involved!
As a family we also try our best to fill our days with good things! We speak both French and English and some Greek together. We have also found one of the best and most wonderful way to enjoy and learn in our days together is to align our daily rhythm with the different seasons... having a collection of good traditions and fun experiences.
This last year we were thankful to have been able to share some wonderful memories as a family ..and even though we have times where we are sick or too tired we always try to do what we can and never do too much. That way we can make certain not to miss the small simple joys in life too!
Here is a list of the activities and adventures that we made our priority to happen last year for our little guy who was 5 at the time.
Winter:
Learning to cross country ski with Mama & Papa, lots of hot chocolate, quiet Sunday afternoons at home with games and a big delicious meal to end our week, snowshoeing with Mama & Papa in the woods, lots of big bowls of all kinds of comforting wintery soups, picking a Christmas tree and decorating it together, Christmas time cookie baking and decorating with Mama, going to our favorite museum the Nature museum, cutting out paper snowflakes, making snowmen with Papa, doing lots of indoor puzzles/games/paintings/buildings, going tobogganing with Papa, and ice skating while enjoying beaver tails on the canal!
Spring:
Enjoying walks and puddle splashing in the rain with our umbrellas,, making our family favourite rhubarb crumble cake, picking flowers outside "for Mama", decorating Easter eggs, talking/learning/reading about all of the different animals born in eggs, visiting our favourite local Lake where the water is receded and we can find all kinds of little shells/algae/crab claw bits, going to the sugar shack with all the family having stacks of pancakes with fresh maple syrup and watching the trees drip into buckets, big bowls of soup and big slices of cake at our favorite Cafe on the weekends after nice long walks in the woods!
Summer:
Lots of playing in the sand at the beach once a week during the day with Mama, lots of ice cream, doing a hike once a week during the day with Mama, going to the farmers market to buy and learn about all kinds of fruits and vegetables, eating lots of berries and melons, going camping together as a family and also with friends and family enjoying roasted marshmallows and hot dogs, canoeing and campfires, going to Summer music Festivals like our favourite the Ottawa Jazz Fest, meeting friends and neighbours on Fridays and having pizza delivered to our local park where we all chat, play soccer and play at the splashpad a fun way to end the week!
Fall:
Visiting the Maker Faire with Papa to learn about Science and inventions, going to the orchard for apple picking, visiting our friends farm and watching the sheeps being sheared, collecting acorns from the neighbourhood trees, making leaf piles to jump in, reading lots of fun story books about pumpkins/Halloween/Thanksgiving, going to a squash farm and then heading home with our collection to make pasta with our fresh picked squash for lasagna and big pots of squash soup, eating lots of our freshly picked apples for snacks, going with Georges entire family to the cottage for Thanksgiving weekend to enjoy the Autumnal view with long walks, turkey dinners, and lots of games and treats.
FINANCES
We are a financially secure family, with Georges’ job as a Senior Mechanical Engineer. We have been able to afford a home of our own as well have a good savings plan and have made wise investments for the future. Our goal has always been to have Lia home with the children and our financial planning has been done with that in mind.
Georges employment also provides us with complete medical, dental, life and disability insurance. We also both have private insurance policies.
OUR HOME & NEIGHBOURHOOD
We live in a beautiful three story Victorian red brick home in a sought after neighborhood of Ottawa.
Our 3+ bedroom home was built in 1910 and has all of the original beautiful features including big bright stain glass windows. Georges has a great skill in home renovation and being highly skilled in this hobby he has done numerous upgrades to our home such as a new kitchen and bathroom and beautiful landscaping in our yard.
He is currently building a beautiful wooden play/writing table for our son that will sit in our den next to the kitchen and has done many projects that our son has been a part of the "building" he has his own little set of real tools that he is learning to use with his Papa.
We have a lovely front yard with a huge old tree in the front that we will put a tire swing on next summer and a big backyard complete with a big swing set (built by Papa & Son), slides, sand pit, a big deck and lots of grass space to play. Georges is also working on building a large area for raised garden beds and we will be starting our first family gardening projects next summer. Georges also built us a huge flower bed box where we planted lots of flowers this summer to have fresh picked lilacs, tulips, peonies and more to fill our house in the summer.
Our Neighbourhood is incredibly family friendly with almost every home on our street having all different ages of children. We are within walking distance of 3 different parks as well as many schools, a lovely library and fantastic restaurants and cafes. We live 10 minutes from a large summer outdoor farmers market and a handful of splash pads and wading pools to choose from. We have numerous local community events that take place steps from our house such as music, food and artisanal festivals as well as summer outdoor movie nights and many more fun activities that our family enjoys together.
We have put a lot of thought and care into our home, and we find living in a family friendly neighbourhood near a great community whilst also being just a 15 minute drive to be near beautiful nature trails in the Gatineau hills is the perfect mix of both city and country living for our family.
WHAT GUIDES US AS PARENTS
"Look well at the child on your knee. In whatever condition you find him, look with reverence. We can only love and serve him and be his friend. We cannot own him. He is not ours… Respect him. Do not see him as something to prune, form, or mold. This is an individual who thinks, acts, and feels. He is a separate human being whose strength lies in who he is, not in who he will become." -Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.
We have learned so much about our son and who he is as a little person in this parenting journey. Our goal has always been to work really really hard at respecting him as his own individual and taking the necessary time to get to know what his true interests are. We love to see what makes him excited, what he really wants to learn more about, and to help him grow through this process of growing up.
We are always striving to encourage and model for him what it means to be kind and thankful, generous, loving and also the harder tasks such as being patient, having self control, respecting others. We believe that the parent’s job is not to demand these traits from a child through coercion or spanking, or yelling but only through actually living these qualities in front of your child so they can see what it means to be a good person who respects himself and others.
Everyone, young and old, will have hard and difficult days and our desire is to always try our best to allow our child to express anxieties, fears and anger in a safe place free of any kind of physical hitting or spanking, a place where they are loved and understood. Our desire is that when they do misbehave or act unkind, we want to give our children a natural consequence of the behavior so they can have the opportunity to learn from it. We believe this will teach them to be responsible for their actions and see how they affect others in order to learn to be a kind and respectful contributor to their family and community. This is a part of growing up.
Having an inspiring, positive environment at home for a child to learn and grow up in is also a huge passion for our family. Surrounding the child with an assortment of seasonally inspired beautiful objects in the home to promote and encourage imaginative play. Collected colourful Autumn leaves, Little toy sea creatures, colorful shaped blocks, pretend bugs, magnetic shapes for stacking and building, a rich selection of books with stories filled with adventure, and humour, and books on every subject a curious child might want to delve into: birds, sea creatures, farm life, space, rocks, butterflies ...
"An observant child should be put in the way of things worth observing" -Charlotte Mason
ADOPTION
The idea of adoption first entered into Lia's heart as a young adult before she met Georges, she felt a desire to not only have her own biological children but to also welcome a child or children through adoption. When we were dating and later married we spoke together about building our family and the desire to also look into adoption and both agreed that this would be a wonderful choice for our family. After we had our first son we decided to have one more child together and then start looking into adoption. Unfortunately we lost our second child through miscarriage and have since been unable to conceive. After a few years of trying to become pregnant again we decided it was time! We chose not to go through any kind of in vitro or any other kind of fertilization. We knew it was the time to start the process to welcome our second child into our family through adoption.
Our biggest wish is to make a lifetime connection with you through adoption in a way that would most feel comfortable for you. We will leave for you to decide the amount of time and type of openness you would like to have with your child throughout their life, and we will fully and completely respect your decisions.
We thank you so much for graciously reading our profile. We hope that you will give us serious consideration as adoptive parents for your baby. Our biggest wish is to make a lifetime connection with you through adoption in a way that would most feel comfortable for you. The amount of time and type of openness you would like to have with your child throughout its life, we will leave for you to decide and we will fully and completely respect and support you in your decisions.
Our family and our son's life would be so very much complete to welcome your child into our fold. You can rest assured that if you were to choose us as adoptive parents, your child would receive an abundance of all of the Love and attention that it deserves.
We thank you! for your time ..your thoughts ..and your consideration for us.
Lia & Georges
A few words about Lia from Georges:
"My wife Lia is such a good mother to our son, she has worked so hard and been so caring to our family. A lot of Sleepless nights staying up with our boy when he is sick, or if he just wants her to be by his side. She is a very selfless mother her focus is not for herself but for the good of her family. She never gives up and always strives to be better. She is so incredibly patient and willing to help, if for example our son who has struggled with eating well and trying new foods to eat, Lia will gently find ways to help him to taste new things in a positive way and fun way by turning it into a game or by including him in the cooking so it is enjoyable. And she is an amazing cook I feel spoiled for all of the deliscious meals we have all had together. She enriches our life and we Love her!"
Lia's Family
We don't get to see my side of the family as often as Georges family as we live far away but we try our best to travel every two or three years to either Seattle or Greece.
When we visit my family on the Seattle Peninsula, one of our many highlights is taking the 15 minute ferryboat over the vast Puget Sound waters to see my Godparents and their newly adopted 12 year old son Jason along with my God-sister and her family of 4 children who adore our son. We do lots of fun things when we visit and my Godparents live on 6 acres in the countryside with a Koi fish pond, chicken yard, an apple orchard, and huge wooden obstacle course play area that my Godfather built for all the kids.
When in Seattle we also visit my Father and his wife whom we call Papous and Yiayia. Papous is a musician and gives his Grandson free access to his amazing instrument collection (with a bit of supervision of course). Papous loves to cook us big delicious meals and we go visit Papous' bakery in downtown Seattle to watch him bake all kinds of Greek pastries, Baklava being our favourite. We have also traveled with Papous and YiaYia 3 times to Greece which has always been an enjoyable wonderful family time to visit all of our Greek family and cousins there we always have longs days at the beach with them, big Greek dinners outside while all of the kids play and we also have two diver/fisherman in the family who take us out on fun fishing adventures ..Our little boy has 5 cousins within a few years from him who are always so excited to play with him, Opa!
All of my family in Seattle, the Olympic Peninsula and Greece are so incredibly excited for the day that we adopt and bring our second child home with us, they cannot wait and ask me quite often "how it is going?" and "how soon it will be before they can meet the new member of our big loving family"? They are all praying and trying their best to patiently wait..
ALL ABOUT GEORGES
Hello! My full name is Georges Pierre I was born in Quebec City and moved to Ottawa when I was 10 years old. I grew up in a suburb of Ottawa with a very warm and loving family. My Father Jean Paul was a ship Captain he has told us many stories of his adventures when we were growing up of all of the places he visited. My mothers name is Ghislaine and she was a teacher before she had my two older sisters Pascale and Marie and myself and then she became a homemaker and stayed home to raise us while we were growing up. After completing high school I went on to study engineering at University of Ottawa and graduated with honours which has given me the opportunity to work at many great companies such as: IBM, 3M, Nortel Networks,JDS Uniphase.
I love my work and feel a deep appreciation to be able to enjoy my job. I am also an avid lover of the outdoors, backpacking, downhill skiing, xc skiing, mountain biking and most especially cycling. Every year I take part in the Ottawa and Quebec Fondo race as well as charity races to raise money for various organizations such as the Ottawa Mission. I have also enjoyed doing many team sports, having played football in college as well as joining rugby and soccer leagues as a young adult.
But out of everything what I love most of all is my time with my wife and son! Being a Father is the best job of all, it does take a lot of hard work but teaching our child how to build legos, use tools, ride a bike, being alongside him when he makes some kind of amazing discovery he wants to show me, reading him stories and putting him to bed at night are what really matter, these are great gifts that I am honoured to receive!
A few words about Georges written by Lia:
"My husband is the most authentic and honest person I have ever met, he is not afraid to be wrong and is fully confident in who he is as a man, husband and father. He is incredibly humble and kind ..he is always happy to talk to anyone and has this great way of relating to people and making them feel comfortable and appreciated. I have learned so much from him, he is always reading and has never ending amounts of facts and things to tell me about and he makes me want to be a better person because of who he is, I could not imagine this journey through life without him, he balances and cherishes our family with his wise, gentle and loving support."
GEORGES FAMILY
We get to see my family quite often, for family dinners, birthdays, and we spend all of our holidays together. They are a big fun loving ‘Joie de vivre’ adventurous French family, they all do a lot of traveling and and are a very exciting bunch. My eldest sister Pascale does International Development, working with the Canadian Government to provide aid for those lacking basic needs, specifically in Africa and South America. My other sister Marie is very artistic and owns an independent film company with her husband in Montréal they have done numerous award winning documentaries and short films. Our son has lots of Aunts and Uncles (one of whom is adopted) and cousins and we are also very blessed to have a wonderfully diverse family with French Canadian, Dominican, Haitian and Laotian cultures represented within our family. We all go on hikes together, have visits in Montreal, rent a cottage yearly for thanksgiving, and we have all gone to Cuba together. We also help each other through difficult times and take care of each other. We all hold family as a priority in our life.
Everyone in my family is impatient and excited for the day when we adopt. They cannot wait to meet and welcome in the newest member of our growing family with an enormous amount of Love!
ALL ABOUT OUR SON THÉO
Currently Theo wants to be a deep sea diver ... and he is a bit upset that he is still too young to be able to start working as a diver today!
Right now he is curious about: All of the different kinds of whales, the trap door spider, the Octonauts cartoon, different kinds of animal teeth, leaves falling from the trees in Autumn, green beans with "magic beans" inside, the arctic and all the animals that live in it, mussels and clams and he would like to try to taste them, and the Mimic Octopus which he would like to be for Halloween this year (which his Mama is currently working hard at sewing his costume to get it ready in time).
Right now he Loves: To wrestle and we have decided to let him start Judo martial arts which he is very excited about!
This year he has really gotten into soccer and played with a little kids team for three months in summer.
He is an adventurous little boy who was climbing way before he could even walk, he has loads of energy and is ready to conquer the day from the moment he gets up early in the morning. He loves to keep himself busy and always craves something to build or tinker or play imagine with.
Theo is also a bit of a prankster ... whoopy cushions are totally his thing! He loves to try to make us laugh! He cherishes his close little friendships and talks about his friends often but he also loves and very much needs his quiet time to re-charge, focus and play silently by himself. He also loves books! He has his own little library at home with all kinds of books for him to delve into ..he cherishes the time we spend readong with him getting cozy and sharing grand stories of big adventures! And most of all he cannot wait for the day that he can be a big brother! He asks us often when he will have a new brother or sister, we love seeing him with our friends' younger children he is so protective and playful with them and we know how much joy it will bring us all to have little siblings who will grow together.
OUR FAMILY & OUR FAITH
Georges was raised Roman Catholic and I (Lia) was raised Christian. We both have found in our lives a great joy and strength in our Faith in God. We share this love with our son but never in a pushy or forced way, we want him to come to his beliefs through his own journey and experience with God ..and for him to have a sense and understanding of why our beliefs have shaped us into the people we are today and for him to take from it all the good values that we hope will instill into him a desire to be humble and think of others feelings, to show kindness and love, to have a heart and mind that is wise and thoughtful. We attend Church regularly and are also involved in the local charity groups that the Church offers in our neighbourhood. One for example that we volunteer in takes place once a month,..the Church rents a local laundry mat and offers free laundry to those in need in collaboration with the local food bank. Once our son is a little older Lia also plans to bring him along when she does baking at the food bank as they encourage kids to be involved!
As a family we also try our best to fill our days with good things! We speak both French and English and some Greek together. We have also found one of the best and most wonderful way to enjoy and learn in our days together is to align our daily rhythm with the different seasons... having a collection of good traditions and fun experiences.
This last year we were thankful to have been able to share some wonderful memories as a family ..and even though we have times where we are sick or too tired we always try to do what we can and never do too much. That way we can make certain not to miss the small simple joys in life too!
Here is a list of the activities and adventures that we made our priority to happen last year for our little guy who was 5 at the time.
Winter:
Learning to cross country ski with Mama & Papa, lots of hot chocolate, quiet Sunday afternoons at home with games and a big delicious meal to end our week, snowshoeing with Mama & Papa in the woods, lots of big bowls of all kinds of comforting wintery soups, picking a Christmas tree and decorating it together, Christmas time cookie baking and decorating with Mama, going to our favorite museum the Nature museum, cutting out paper snowflakes, making snowmen with Papa, doing lots of indoor puzzles/games/paintings/buildings, going tobogganing with Papa, and ice skating while enjoying beaver tails on the canal!
Spring:
Enjoying walks and puddle splashing in the rain with our umbrellas,, making our family favourite rhubarb crumble cake, picking flowers outside "for Mama", decorating Easter eggs, talking/learning/reading about all of the different animals born in eggs, visiting our favourite local Lake where the water is receded and we can find all kinds of little shells/algae/crab claw bits, going to the sugar shack with all the family having stacks of pancakes with fresh maple syrup and watching the trees drip into buckets, big bowls of soup and big slices of cake at our favorite Cafe on the weekends after nice long walks in the woods!
Summer:
Lots of playing in the sand at the beach once a week during the day with Mama, lots of ice cream, doing a hike once a week during the day with Mama, going to the farmers market to buy and learn about all kinds of fruits and vegetables, eating lots of berries and melons, going camping together as a family and also with friends and family enjoying roasted marshmallows and hot dogs, canoeing and campfires, going to Summer music Festivals like our favourite the Ottawa Jazz Fest, meeting friends and neighbours on Fridays and having pizza delivered to our local park where we all chat, play soccer and play at the splashpad a fun way to end the week!
Fall:
Visiting the Maker Faire with Papa to learn about Science and inventions, going to the orchard for apple picking, visiting our friends farm and watching the sheeps being sheared, collecting acorns from the neighbourhood trees, making leaf piles to jump in, reading lots of fun story books about pumpkins/Halloween/Thanksgiving, going to a squash farm and then heading home with our collection to make pasta with our fresh picked squash for lasagna and big pots of squash soup, eating lots of our freshly picked apples for snacks, going with Georges entire family to the cottage for Thanksgiving weekend to enjoy the Autumnal view with long walks, turkey dinners, and lots of games and treats.
FINANCES
We are a financially secure family, with Georges’ job as a Senior Mechanical Engineer. We have been able to afford a home of our own as well have a good savings plan and have made wise investments for the future. Our goal has always been to have Lia home with the children and our financial planning has been done with that in mind.
Georges employment also provides us with complete medical, dental, life and disability insurance. We also both have private insurance policies.
OUR HOME & NEIGHBOURHOOD
We live in a beautiful three story Victorian red brick home in a sought after neighborhood of Ottawa.
Our 3+ bedroom home was built in 1910 and has all of the original beautiful features including big bright stain glass windows. Georges has a great skill in home renovation and being highly skilled in this hobby he has done numerous upgrades to our home such as a new kitchen and bathroom and beautiful landscaping in our yard.
He is currently building a beautiful wooden play/writing table for our son that will sit in our den next to the kitchen and has done many projects that our son has been a part of the "building" he has his own little set of real tools that he is learning to use with his Papa.
We have a lovely front yard with a huge old tree in the front that we will put a tire swing on next summer and a big backyard complete with a big swing set (built by Papa & Son), slides, sand pit, a big deck and lots of grass space to play. Georges is also working on building a large area for raised garden beds and we will be starting our first family gardening projects next summer. Georges also built us a huge flower bed box where we planted lots of flowers this summer to have fresh picked lilacs, tulips, peonies and more to fill our house in the summer.
Our Neighbourhood is incredibly family friendly with almost every home on our street having all different ages of children. We are within walking distance of 3 different parks as well as many schools, a lovely library and fantastic restaurants and cafes. We live 10 minutes from a large summer outdoor farmers market and a handful of splash pads and wading pools to choose from. We have numerous local community events that take place steps from our house such as music, food and artisanal festivals as well as summer outdoor movie nights and many more fun activities that our family enjoys together.
We have put a lot of thought and care into our home, and we find living in a family friendly neighbourhood near a great community whilst also being just a 15 minute drive to be near beautiful nature trails in the Gatineau hills is the perfect mix of both city and country living for our family.
WHAT GUIDES US AS PARENTS
"Look well at the child on your knee. In whatever condition you find him, look with reverence. We can only love and serve him and be his friend. We cannot own him. He is not ours… Respect him. Do not see him as something to prune, form, or mold. This is an individual who thinks, acts, and feels. He is a separate human being whose strength lies in who he is, not in who he will become." -Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.
We have learned so much about our son and who he is as a little person in this parenting journey. Our goal has always been to work really really hard at respecting him as his own individual and taking the necessary time to get to know what his true interests are. We love to see what makes him excited, what he really wants to learn more about, and to help him grow through this process of growing up.
We are always striving to encourage and model for him what it means to be kind and thankful, generous, loving and also the harder tasks such as being patient, having self control, respecting others. We believe that the parent’s job is not to demand these traits from a child through coercion or spanking, or yelling but only through actually living these qualities in front of your child so they can see what it means to be a good person who respects himself and others.
Everyone, young and old, will have hard and difficult days and our desire is to always try our best to allow our child to express anxieties, fears and anger in a safe place free of any kind of physical hitting or spanking, a place where they are loved and understood. Our desire is that when they do misbehave or act unkind, we want to give our children a natural consequence of the behavior so they can have the opportunity to learn from it. We believe this will teach them to be responsible for their actions and see how they affect others in order to learn to be a kind and respectful contributor to their family and community. This is a part of growing up.
Having an inspiring, positive environment at home for a child to learn and grow up in is also a huge passion for our family. Surrounding the child with an assortment of seasonally inspired beautiful objects in the home to promote and encourage imaginative play. Collected colourful Autumn leaves, Little toy sea creatures, colorful shaped blocks, pretend bugs, magnetic shapes for stacking and building, a rich selection of books with stories filled with adventure, and humour, and books on every subject a curious child might want to delve into: birds, sea creatures, farm life, space, rocks, butterflies ...
"An observant child should be put in the way of things worth observing" -Charlotte Mason
ADOPTION
The idea of adoption first entered into Lia's heart as a young adult before she met Georges, she felt a desire to not only have her own biological children but to also welcome a child or children through adoption. When we were dating and later married we spoke together about building our family and the desire to also look into adoption and both agreed that this would be a wonderful choice for our family. After we had our first son we decided to have one more child together and then start looking into adoption. Unfortunately we lost our second child through miscarriage and have since been unable to conceive. After a few years of trying to become pregnant again we decided it was time! We chose not to go through any kind of in vitro or any other kind of fertilization. We knew it was the time to start the process to welcome our second child into our family through adoption.
Our biggest wish is to make a lifetime connection with you through adoption in a way that would most feel comfortable for you. We will leave for you to decide the amount of time and type of openness you would like to have with your child throughout their life, and we will fully and completely respect your decisions.
We thank you so much for graciously reading our profile. We hope that you will give us serious consideration as adoptive parents for your baby. Our biggest wish is to make a lifetime connection with you through adoption in a way that would most feel comfortable for you. The amount of time and type of openness you would like to have with your child throughout its life, we will leave for you to decide and we will fully and completely respect and support you in your decisions.
Our family and our son's life would be so very much complete to welcome your child into our fold. You can rest assured that if you were to choose us as adoptive parents, your child would receive an abundance of all of the Love and attention that it deserves.
We thank you! for your time ..your thoughts ..and your consideration for us.
Lia & Georges
