About Us
We are the proud Mama and Papa to Olivia, age 12, Evangeline, age 6, Odin, age 3, and currently in the process of adopting a baby into our family. Our Chow Chow Teddy will be 2 in July and our beloved kitten, Mister, was born during the pandemic.
If you have time for the full story, let’s go back to the beginning…
Hi, it's Emily,
My life was forever changed February 23, 2011, the day I found out I was going to be a mother. A myriad of questions started repeating themselves in my head. Would I be a good mother? Would my child like me? How was I going to raise a baby? At the time, I was 22, single, and having a baby was the last thing on my grand to-do list.
Olivia Grace was born on November 11, 2011, and even as I write this very simple sentence, my throat has tightened and my eyes well up with tears. Olivia has been the greatest blessing I could ever dream of receiving. My pregnancy with her brought me to know Christ, my heavenly father, and changed me to the core of my being. After Olivia, I questioned what in the world my motivation was before she arrived. Living for myself seemed so trivial and boring in comparison to being a mother. I always planned on being a mother and having children, but I never dreamed how much I would LOVE being a mother.
Even though Olivia brought so much joy and meaning to my life, we were not complete. My heart desired a man to share the joys of raising a child with. I longed to find someone who would help me show Olivia what a God-first relationship looked like. Someone whom we both could depend on to love us, unconditionally.
I met Joel in August of 2012. He was brilliant, charming, and he looked like Clark Kent. He also happened to be one of my best friend’s brothers. I fought like hell not to fall in love with Joel, but he was patient, and he was persistent, and he was the kindest man I had ever met. After I finally let Joel meet Olivia, all my walls and defenses came down. I will remember the day they met till my dying breath. Olivia walked right up to him, climbed up on his lap, and they read a story together. By the afternoon they were rolling around on the floor, tickling each other, and laughing together.
Today, almost 10 years later, we are a family of 5. We welcomed Evangeline Rae in 2017, after over a year of infertility, and Odin was a surprise COVID baby, born in 2020.
In our home, you can regularly hear laughter reverberating off the walls, little feet racing from room to room, and our Chow Chow pitter pattering after them. Our house is always messy because we spend more time playing with and enjoying our kids than cleaning up…maybe one day we’ll figure out how to accomplish both, but for now we embrace the joy AND the piles of toys.
Raising 3 head-strong kids is not for the faint of heart. I cannot imagine being able to manage my day to day without the wellness I have sewn into the fabric of my life. Basic things like hydration, sleep, fueling my body with nutrition instead of coffee, these things are paramount to what makes me able to live the life that I choose every day. My day does not happen to me, I am in charge. Discipline in my routines is the differentiator between living a life of freedom and control, and being controlled by my hormones and fatigue.
