About Spencer & Kristen

  
    Both were born and raised in Utah.  Spencer is the youngest of 5 children.  He went on a LDS Mission to Argentina.  While he was there, his parents moved into the same stake as Kristen.
Kristen is 3rd of 8 children.  She and Spencer met in a Single Ward of the LDS Church, in Utah, April 2005.  We started out as friends. doing things together with other friends and church activities.
We started Dating in August 2005.  We dated for 10 months and we were engaged April.  Married in the Provo, Utah LDS Temple, June 2006.  We have now been married for 6 years! 
   
    Spencer, like I stated before, is the youngest of 5 children and 29 yrs old.  He has 2 brothers and 2 sisters.  All are married with children of thier own and all living in Utah Valley area.  His parents are also in Utah.  Spencer's siblings are all very welcoming and kind.  They all have big hearts and so much fun!  They all have very different careers and hobbies, from Childrens Dentist, Accountant, Stay at home Mother,  Horse care and hunting, and Spencer is an automotive desgner!  Although they all have such different careers, they are all so very similar.  They all love to stay in shape and work out.  Eating healthy and staying fit!  They all have strong family values and great work ethic.  When they all get together, they love to talk about stuff when they were growing up and as kids.  Emma has been able to get to know her 14 cousins and she loves them all so very much! 
   Spencer loves triathalons, Running Biking Swimming...anything to stay is shape and work out.  He ran through high school and college.  He loves to play other sports as well, esspecially basketball.  Spencer loves to be active.  He loves to take Emma out to kick around the soccer ball or ride bikes.
   Spencer loves his job.  He works for a major automotive company researching and designing cars.
Ever since he was a little kid, he has always loved cars, hot wheels. He worked hard to get his dream career.  He worked so hard through school at BYU for his undergraduate degree in Industrial design.  after graduation, there were no current job availability with his skill set or area. Plus, Spencer loves to learn.  So he decided he wanted to get a Master's degree in Automotive design.  We moved to Michigan so that he could go to an Art/Design school in Detroit.  He worked so hard and so long to get through school.  He graduated with his Master's in May 2011.  He then got his dream job at a Major Automotive Company.   He has now been working there for close to a year!  He is planning on staying there for a good long time.  He is so happy to be doing what he loves to do!  Not everyone gets to say that they have their dream job at 29, right out of school! 
    Spencer serves in our Church and he loves all those he serves. He puts so much heart and hard work into the service of others.  He makes friends very easily.  He is amazingly kind and open to everyone.  Sometimes it is hard on him and me that he can't say "no" to anyone.  But he does it all because he loves people to much and wants to help all that he can.
    Spencer is an amazing husband and father!  He is so great with Emma.  She loves him so vey much.  They love to play dolls, pretend, outside...  When he comes home from work, Emma is usually right at the door waiting with a plan of something to play and do with daddy.  Just like he can't say "no" to everyone else, it is extremely hard for him to say "no" to Emma when it comes to playing.  He is thoughtful and loving.  He takes time to do so many great things for and with Emma.  He is trying to teach her Spanish and art.  She loves to paint because of him and draw.  They love to do things like that together.  He is teaching her how to read a "big girl" bike and he is so patient with her.  He takes time out of his busy day to do things with us even if he is so tired or worn out.  He loves his family.
     He always tries to open my door when getting into the car.  He is very good at remembering dates and remembering birthdays and special occasions.  He can remember the date of the first time we kissed better than I did, which is almost unheard of for a man!  He loves to be with us and tries to do so as much as he can!
    Something that I admire about Spencer is the fact that he keeps a journal!  I can blog and scrapbook, but keeping a journal is extremely hard for me to do, I don't know why.  But I always admired the fact that Spencer could remember to write down his feelings of the day or even just the events.
    My family just adores everything about Spencer.  My little brother's look up to him so much. After 6 big sisters, they needed a big brother to be a kid with them and teach them.  And I think that they really look up to him. My parent's think his is so perfect.  He is such an amazing guy in so many different ways. 

    Kristen is 26 and like stated before, the 3rd of 8 kids.  6 sisters and 2 brothers.  She is from a blended family.  Her dad Joe was married and had 2 daughters.  Her mom Charlie was married and had her and her little sister Kimberly. After both marriages were ended, the mom and dad met and were married.  They then had 4 children together, 2 girls and then 2 boys.  Her dad, Joe, then adopted Kristen and Kimberly, and then they and the 4 younger children were sealed to Mom and Dad. 
The oldest sister is not married but has a 6 year old daughter.  Next sister is married with 2 daughters.  Then Kristen.  Then Kimberly is married with a daughter on the way.  Then the next sister is not married but, with a 1 year old daughter - equaling 6 Granddaughters!  One more sister just graduated high school. And the two boys are still at home!   Kristen's family are all very outspoken and headstrong people!  But they all have a very strong work ethic.  Her dad taught her and the family how to work hard, but then play hard.  They grew up with land and garden that they had to keep up and work hard!  But they took many vacations and did so many fun things together.
    Kristen is a stay at home mother, and would choose nothing else!  She loves Emma and loves to do things with her!  They are doing a preschool together.  Kristen is just homeschooling her through Preschool and then Emma is start Kindergarten in a school this year.  She loves to plan fun outings to do with Emma and friends.  They love to go to the zoo and museums...anyplace that she can teach Emma something new or again to make Emma happy!
    Kristen also has a wedding cake business that she runs from home.  It isn't very big at all, just one maybe two cakes a month.  She does this because she loves it, not because of the needed income.  It is just a love/hobby.  One day she would love to have, in her dream house, a space to run a larger cake business but, still from home. 
    Kristen also loves to do crafts and things to make the house decorative and nice!  She likes to find new ways to refurbish and make better old furniture.  She is always looking for something better to make the house look better, different or updated/instyle. 
    She never finished college although she was close to an Associates degree in business management.  When Spencer and she were married, they needed the money and so she got a job and stopped school.  It was more importanted to her that they get Spencer through school full time so that he could get a great job to support a family.  She alwanted to just be a stay at home mom!  That is what is most important to her. 
    Kristen played Volleyball and Basketball in high school and she likes to play sports.  Working out or running isn't a big joy, but trying to stay in shape is important to her when she can.  Especially lately.  Taking hormones to try and get pregnant and the PCOS has made it very difficult for her to loose any weight and is adding to the difficulty.  But she is trying to eat right and work out daily so that she can have the energy to keep up with the kids.

 
Spencer and Kristen have many of the same likes but at the same time, they are different enough that they comlement each other extremely well!   They both love the outdoors, even when both have seasonal allergies.  They love camping, hiking, bike riding, going to the beach.  They both love Family!  We all love our families so very much and we miss them as they are all in Utah and we are here in Michigan.  But, we look forward to the trips and vacations to see family.  We love to do the cross country drive and see so many things and get to spend that time together talking and learning more and more about each other!
    Some of their differences include, music - Spencer likes classical and some pop, Kristen likes Country and hip hop.  Spencer likes action/sci.fi movies and Kristen loves chick flicks and Classics.
 Kristen Loves to read novels and stories, Spencer doesn't love to read but her likes and will read the self improvement or school books.
   Michigan is so different than Utah.  But, we have learned to love so many of the wonderful things out here.  The zoo, parks, lake beaches, museums, etc...  We really feel that we are becoming more and more apart of the community, city and state activities, much more than we would have if we were in Utah. In Utah, we only would have done things with family, which isn't bad, just different.  We are learning a lot more here about the world.  Michigan has so many different cultures and experiances than we ever saw in Utah.  We are so glad that Emma has this opportunity to learn more and more about different cultures and religions. 
    Spencer and Kristen were married for 8 months when they found out, unexpectantly, that Kristen was pregnant!  Since learning about the PCOS (PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome), which means that there are cysts surrounding both ovaries which makes it impossible to ovulate or concieve... This means that concieving Emma was trully a miracle! 
     Emma was born August 2007!  It changed all our lives for the better!  Emma is the center of our lives and it is so fun to watch her grow and learn and change into a little person!!  We both always thought that we would have a big family....it is trully wonderful to us that the Lord knows us better than we know ourselves.  He knows what we need and how we need it!
    We are both so super excited to begin this process of adoption!  I, kristen, know that I never thought I would need to adopt to complete our family, since both sides of our family have never had any problems.  The infertility that we have suffered through has been extremely hard for us to deal with, but when the Lord helped us to see that adoption was the right way for us and our family, we both felt that it was completely the right thing for us to do!  We are so happy that the Lord guided us to and through this decision! 
  
   I hope that this can give you a better look into our lives and into family.  Please feel free to ask any and as many questions as you want and we would be so happy to answer them all!