Hi there! We are Jesse, Katie & August (Augie)! If we had to sum up who we are as a family in one word, it would be: funlovsupporthappy (we know, it’s not a real word but we think it captures who we are pretty accurately!). Jesse is currently an Operations Manager at a local distribution facility and a veteran of the US Navy. Katie is a Business Development Manager with a global personal care manufacturer, selling toiletries to luxury hotels. As a family, we love to take bike rides together, go to outdoor concerts and find new local restaurants to enjoy. One of the most important aspects of our family-life is humor and we enjoy nothing more than to make each other and Augie laugh. He has the best laugh! We hope to have a relationship with you!

We met while we were working together at a chocolate factory in Brooklyn, NY (insert Willy Wonka joke here) and were friends for a while before beginning a relationship together. Being friends first allowed us the opportunity to get to really know each other well as we weren’t trying to impress each other with the idea of starting a relationship. We shared all sides of each other, good and bad, and this let us really understand who each other was. These friendly talks also showed each other the importance of communicating. Maintaining a strong, open, truthful line of communication is something we’ve maintained 11 years later. From there, our ability to make each other laugh and our shared love of food, travel and living life created what seemed like an easy path to what would become our marriage. 

In 2021, we adopted Augie and he has brought so much joy to our lives. We always knew we wanted to be parents and we can’t wait to grow our family. We love spending time together as a family, either out and about in our neighborhood or hanging out around the firepit in our backyard. We have 2 cats, Benny and Jet, although Benny is more like a dog than a cat in the way he follows Jesse around!

Jesse on Katie: 

What I’ve always been attracted to in Katie is her strong, giving, compassionate nature that people naturally gravitate to. Katie is one of the most devoted people I know and is always looking for new ways to volunteer within the community. She currently volunteers with Meals on Wheels and has a monthly route serving a community in downtown Indy. When one of her friends or a family member is going through a difficult time, Katie is always one of the first people to show up with a meal or an offer to babysit or any other way to help the person she loves through their tough time. 

Last year, when Augie came into our lives, Katie showed a whole new level of dedication and love that further proved to me how caring and giving a person she is. Her compassionate nature is strong enough that Augie must sense it because he lights up anytime his mama comes into the room and always seeks her out when she’s not around. Katie has always been someone that gives everything she has to make the people she loves feel special and the levels of love she has shown to August exceed even her own high bar standards for showing her affection.

Katie on Jesse:

Jesse is one of the most patient, even-tempered and kind humans I know. I love to be on the go and he does such a great job of balancing me with his calm. What instantly drew me to him was his quick wit and vast knowledge of pop culture. He’s so fun to talk to and is super smart. When we were getting to know each other as friends, we developed this incredible banter. To this day, we’re super playful, making each other laugh constantly. In watching him with our cats, nephews, and friends’ kids, I was 1000% positive he’d be the most incredible father and he proved me right and then some. Jesse’s love for Augie is by far the most endearing quality in him yet. He’s so invested in Augie’s happiness, is fiercely protective at all times and blankets him in love. He never thinks twice about finishing a long day of work with time spent on the ground playing with Augie. Oh and he makes him giggle the most!

Our Community:

We live in the Meridian-Kessler area of Indy and have called this neighborhood our home for the past 6.5 years. We love being so close to restaurants and coffee shops, which we often walk to in the evening or on weekends. We are surrounded by neighbors that we have grown to call good friends and have opened our front yard to their children to play on whenever they want. The neighborhood is very diverse with many different ethnicities represented within the community and our neighbors routinely get together on the street to catch-up. Jesse has captained the neighborhood softball team and plays pickup basketball with the neighbors when possible. Katie loves to exercise (mostly walking, biking or yoga these days). She would live in our kitchen if she could…it’s truly her happy place. She cooks up creations using fresh produce we get each week from a local farmer. She’s super social and manages our family’s calendar which is always filled with play dates, bbqs, summer concerts and lots of leisurely weekends biking or going to the lakehouse.

Our Family

Jesse’s family lives in New York and love to travel there to visit as often as we can. We also enjoy spending time with Katie’s family here in Indy, which include her immediate family of parents, brother, sister-in-law and nephew, as well as her extended family, which has too many cousins, nieces and nephews to count!

Parenting Values:

When it comes to parenting styles, we understand the importance of maintaining a positive structure within the family. We feel that showing children love and affection is key to allowing them to grow into confident, strong, emotionally intelligent young adults. Along with these components, we will show them by example the importance of being responsible to themselves, their family and their community and how significant of a trait it is to be able to “show up” when expected to. Overall, we believe providing love, understanding and direction will help any child grow into a mature, strong and responsible person that will one day parent their own children. 

We believe that an adoptee needs to understand their story, which is why we value the relationship we have with Augie’s birth mom and hope to do the same with you. We want our children to know where they come from and who they are as individuals and we hope to be able to have a relationship with you!

No updates at this time.