Mother's Day 2008

This Mother's Day, I was very blessed to spend the day with my husband and three beautiful children. We are very thankful to God for everything He has so generously given us. It has been my intention for a while to start a blog as a journal so that we can look back one day and remember what these crazy days were like (if we make it, that is) :) Now that our family is officially complete, I feel that it is a great time to start writing stuff down. Hopefully this time, I'll stick with it! We have a lot of friends and family all over the world that we need to stay in touch with and this is the perfect way to do it. So....here goes!

Latest News

Jon is still working as an Inside Wholesaler for First Trust Portfolios. His company is planning to move to Wheaton in the fall which will be great because it will be a short 3 minute drive each morning. He will probably ride his bike when the weather is nice. His job has been such a blessing for our family in that he is home each day by 4:30 and gets A LOT of paid time off. He is able to be so involved in the kids' lives because of that.

I (Katie)....(most likely I will be the one writing most of the time so from now on, just assume "I" means Katie unless we specify otherwise). Those of you that know Jon aren't surprised. :) Anyway...I am starting nursing school this fall. Not quite sure how we are going to swing this yet with the kids as classes meet during the day a couple times a week, but we are praying for the perfect person to care for them in my absence. This is something I've been planning to do for a while, and while I'm thankful that I've been able to stay home, I am very ready for this opportunity. I am still working part time in the Emergency Department at Edward Hospital. It has kind of been my fun hobby for the past 3 years.

Hannah is 4 and is wrapping up her first year of preschool. We have seen her grow up so much in the past 9 months. She has endless energy and loves the world around her. She thinks everyone her size is her "friend", and is not self-conscious or shy in approaching anyone. It is inspiring. She has taken up soccer and has practice weekly (Jon is very happy).

Calah is 16 months and continues to be Jon's "mini-me". She looks like him, acts like him and even gives me the same "look" that he does. I always feel like she is my "peace" because she is so calm that just holding her relaxes me :) She loves playing outside and taking baths, and most of all, EATING. Calah out-eats Hannah almost every meal of everyday. She loves her shoes and always wants to put them on and go outside. Her words now are: Mama, Dada, Nana (Hannah), Bath, Ball, Ant, Dog, Juice, Shoes, Uh-OH, Head, OUT!


Jacob Jonathan joined our family on March 25th and since then, things are a little crazy around here. The girls are adjusting well...Hannah is a very helpful big sister and Calah likes to poke him in the eyes. She's not trying to be mean (I don't think), but she's just learning the parts of the face and likes to practice on him :) He is a big boy...almost 14 pounds now. We can't quite figure out who he looks like yet, but most people have noticed that he has Grandpa Beutjer's cheeks. I guess we'll just wait and see.

Lastly, Jon and I will celebrate five years of marriage on June 6. The time has really flown by...probably because we've had a lot of babies...and I can hardly believe it's been that long already.

This is what we used to look like:



This is what we look like after 3 kids: