Ashley & Paul

Living on a farm with a big family is so fun! The kids are always playing some imaginative game or basketball. Ashley loves gardening. The kids help pick out seeds and watch them grow. Running outside in the morning to pick and eat fresh strawberries and blueberries is always a favorite.

Everything we do - we do together: trains, dolls, board games, puzzles, playing Legos, baking, dance parties, or swinging on our playground. Ashley often finds the children all playing together on the slide or maybe listening to a good book. The girls love taking care of and naming the chickens very silly names like Cutesie or Fluffy Feet. They Irish Dance together each week and love performing. The boys golf with Paul and enjoy climbing trees, racing, and riding bikes on our driveway.

Paul is an engineer and enjoys solving difficult problems, but loves coming home to help and be with the kids. Ashley loves staying at home with the kids. She also teaches violin, plays concerts, and teaches the kids an instrument or two!

We have always dreamed of living on a small farm and moved to one about 4 years ago. There is lots of space to run around, climb trees, and garden. Our chickens are a big hit. The kids love having them, and we have the sweetest barncat, Dumbledore. Our children squeal with delight as they run around our ten acres and have imaginative adventures. Each season brings joy and fun. When it snows, we sled down the cotton field hills, drink hot cocoa, and make cookies for neighbors. Our neighborhood loves to celebrate trick-or-treating season together, complete with hay rides and decked out yards. We make epic leaf piles in the fall to jump in, sprinklers to run through during summer, and at Christmas, we string lights on our fence to light up the neighborhood!

We love living in a beautiful place with mountain views, space, friendly neighbors, and great schools.

We are blessed to have parents and aunts and uncles who are active in the lives of our children; we take regular trips to see them and celebrate holidays with our many cousins. Christmas is an especially precious time to us, and our kids never feel more loved than when Grandma is making gingerbread houses with them or Grandpa is reading them a story.

Our church family is so friendly and welcoming and forms another layer of friendships for us and our children. We love that it is a safe and healthy community for us to grow and be loved. There are also several families we know well at church who have also adopted and form a wonderful support system for us.

We go to the beach each year with our extended family. All the cousins and aunts and uncles are there, and we spend our days giggling, swimming, making fun desserts, playing silly games, and riding bikes. Our family is so close, warm, and loving and can’t wait to love on a new baby and share all our adventures with them! This is a highlight of our year!

Our favorite adventures involve going to Disney World, Dollywood, or LEGOLAND. Ashley’s parents join in on most of the traveling adventures to help out and create more memories for the kids. We make memory picture books for the kids so they can enjoy the adventures over and over.

We enjoy finding National Parks or historical sites to visit and maybe even a hike or two. We also love birthdays and holidays. We have so many fun traditions at Christmas with family from what we watch and what we eat to where we go. Cookies at Grandma’s house always taste better! On the Fourth of July, we have a big fireworks party on the farm with lots of family and friends.