I started writing to you guys long before we met. I imagined what each of you would be like years before you were here, and part of our family. I always come back to this one thought: it was always you.

Whatever I imagined my life to be before you is everything I had hoped for, yet nothing I ever expected. You are the best parts of your daddy and I. All three of you. We made three of you. It still blows my mind that we created this family together, and after all of these years, we still can't put how much we love you into words. You each are individually so incredibly special, yet together you are all so intricately connected. It's like you've always known each other. It's like you've already lived a life well before this one together. 

I continue to come back to this idea that we're all here to learn. Each life is here to capture the moments, learn from the good decisions and the mistakes, and work hard to evolve and embrace what's thrown at us. Each of you are an educator, constantly teaching and loving me despite my mis-steps. I try hard to catch myself when I know I've made a mistake. When I know I owe you an apology - usually for losing my cool, for yelling, for over-reacting. You love me anyway. You continue to show me grace, see the good in me, and love me hard. Anyway. 

This summer was sure a ride. I was out numbered, and out mastered most of the time. I stumbled, you stumbled, and in the end we found our groove. Three kids against one mommy is no joke. I honestly hope for my own enjoyment that each of you brave three kids for three months S O L O. I can't wait to watch that go down. 9 grandkids though? Yes please. What I woudn't give. 

I wish I had the energy to capture every memory from our time together since I left the corporate world. It's been 6 months since work started to look differently for me, and while you're too little to know it now, this is just as much for you as it is for me. Sometimes it's easy to chalk it up to having three small kids as the reason leaving a big company job made sense. The truth is, I was ready to push myself professionally WHILE pushing myself as a mom. I wanted to look back, while watching you guys snag that diploma or walk that alter and be thankful that all of my years with you, just us, WERE NOT A BLUR. I want this time to be all of the things - even hard, and scary, and rough - as I watch you each become independently YOU. 

Tonight, we broke out your new buffalo check and plaid pajamas. Wyatt and Summer in red/black buffalo check, and Shelby in the last 18-24 months plaid Old Navy had. All you guys wanted to do was tumble around and goof off. So much so, I never got a good picture of you guys for Daddy, who's working late and staying overnight in Seattle tonight. (P.S. I always write my best notes to you when he's not home so I can cry as I write without any concern or interruption. "You cryin' babe?") Earlier, we played outside with the neighbors, Shelby cozy in the bob stroller while Wyatt and Summer killed it at hide and seek until it started to get dark. Our days start slow now, Daddy usually taking you to school while I've been trying to walk to get you as often as I can. Except for today, when I let Shelby sleep until 3:30 when school got out at 3:35. I had no choice but to drive and wait in car line to get you. Wyatt, you're so responsible and eager to not disappoint anyone, practically dragging Summer by her back pack to get in the line in time for me to pull up. Summer, you constantly push the boundaries. I'm scared for what's to come with you. Seriously. Don't push your luck in high school, or else. 

Going into our summer together, I was so scared of being on my own with you guys for long periods of time. It intimidated me to think of taking you anywhere on my own. Often times, it paralyzed me. We overcame that, and found ourselves at the park, out to lunch, and a few times, at Gramma's pool. Solo parenting you guys is still not my favorite thing to do and there are things I do far better that I'd rather do instead. Yet, I am so proud of us. I am so thankful for you, and your patience and grace. I know you'll end up in therapy for all of my fuck ups as a mom, but while you're there you better not, for a single second, doubt how much I love you. That would kill me. 

Tonight, I tucked your warm, squirmy, easily ticklish bodies into your beds. Each of you with your very distinct squishy cheeks that I snuggle my face into and sniff in every night. If I was blind, and only had your cheeks to distinguish you by, you can bet I'd nail it every single time. Wyatt, yours especially, are exactly the same as they were the moment my face met yours the night you were born. 

I love you guys so much. I am not a perfect mom, and you love me anyway. I hope you get to feel the feels that I have for each of you some day, because it will be in those moments that you will truly know what it means to me, to be your mom. 

Goodnight, and I love you, sweet babies of mine.

If you know what's good for you, you'll sleep past 6. 

XOXO,

Your Mama

Mama on a Mission

When they handed me each of my babies, I can tell you that without a doubt something shifted inside of me. Of course I was filled with relief that I was done with each labor, and of course feeling like a damn Superwoman for what I had just achieved. Layering on top of that feeling of achievement, was purpose. It was in those moments that I was responsible for how these little people began to morph and become who they were. At the same time, I was just as responsible for how I continued to morph and become who I was - as a mama, wife, friend, and whatever it was I wanted to become at 30, 31 and 36. The most noticeable feeling of evolution inside me happened with Shelby 14 months ago. I had been visualizing this life with three kids leading up to her birth. I imagined Shelby as this opportunity to experience our growing family a little more deliberately. A do-over in some ways, but more than that a reason to apply what I'd learned about myself up until that point. Wyatt and Summer's earliest months (if I'm honest, years) were hard. I wasn't recognizable to myself most of the time, yet looking back it was all part of the process. It was a blur. Having two kids under two is crazy. Toss in two working (and very driven) parents, two dogs, a terrible commute, super high expectations of oneself and you've got yourself an absolute shit show. It took about 4 years to get my head above water and on a little straighter. Fast forward another two years and an extra kid, and I think I've got a few more things figured out. 

I love being a mom. And I think it's the hardest job I've had in my life. I've had some really hard jobs in the past. Countless professional experiences that have challenged me, scared me, pushed and pulled me. I've had more monkeys thrown on my back than I can count, and I've lost more sleep over difficult conversations than I'd like to admit. I've spoken in front of thousands of people before, and I've made more mistakes than I expected to in my career thus far. To this day, being home with two and now three kids by myself day after day has been the most challenged, scared, pushed, and pulled that I've ever been in my life. Yet, there is no where else I'd rather be. 

And still I know, there's more to and for me. 

I've always thought about being able to eventually, perhaps a few years down the road, begin to pursue some dreams that allow me to be home but also tick off some really important buckets for me professionally. My career has always included my passion for leadership coaching and development, and a few years ago I got certified as a professional coach. Through that program and the years since, it was super clear to me that work for me could be play. I could make it happen and it wouldn't be easy, but it would be worth it. Supporting and coaching executives to search inside themselves to show up as the leader they were always meant to be never felt like work to me. And that's the kind of job I've always wanted.

In November of last year, I decided to jump at the opportunity sitting right in front of me - my Beautycounter business. I didn't know it at the time, but that big jump was the very first step in getting me to right where I am today. Today, I am home with my kids and getting ready to launch my professional coaching business. Beautycounter tested me in ways I didn't know I needed to be tested. I found some dormant confidence (it was always there, I just lost it for awhile) and experienced work as play, and on my terms. This was an unexpected stop along the way to where I am now, but without it I think I might still be dreaming of what work on my terms, could look like for me. 

Work on my terms doesn't feel like work at all. 

I'm a mama on a mission to evolve with and for my kids. Every single day I try something new that scares or stretches me - in my work as a mom, my work to get safer products into the hands of everyone, or the work I'm doing to prepare for my gig as an executive coach. I hope I can be an example to them that we're always learning, and we get to change our paths and have as many turns as we choose. 

After all, if we're not happy in our work, what are we actually working for? 

Dear Shelby, You're 1.

Sweet girl, how in the world are we here, 365 days since we first locked eyes? I haven't seemed to really put my head around any of this. Yet, here we are. Time is funny like that. You'll experience this when you have your own tiny one someday. You have zero control over how quickly things move, and time will never fly so fast than it will when you start your family. Someone once told me it's like sand in your hands, this time of our life. They were right. It slips so fast I can't catch it and the best way I know how is to be as present as possible. You'll notice I haven't written to you has much, or at all, the last 12 months like I did with your sister and brother. I made a choice around 3 months with you to write less, and live more. I feel pretty damn proud of myself for that. I was so intimidated as a new mom with both Wyatt and Summer that I found comfort writing about my feelings to them in my downtime, rather than being more present in real time. With you, I wanted to feel it, live it, see it, more. You are quite possibly, almost definitely, our last baby. There is something about knowing that, combined with doing this a third time, that helped me experience you differently. From pregnancy, birth, to now at the first year mark. I will remember things differently with you, and funny enough that has kind of been the goal since the second we found out we were pregnant with you. I wanted everything to be different. I wanted to be different. And while you're the 'reason', Wyatt and Summer have benefited from you in this department as well. They've experienced me differently because of you. You're like this heat that warms us. You're the center, the fire, of our family right now. You don't even know how much you've taught all of us already.

Your personality is so damn funny. We see you as this opinionated, silly, vocal, little person. There's never a moment we don't know how you are feeling. One second you are calm and kicked back, and seconds later you can change on a dime and show us you are busy and present and loud. You love attention, but you love your space. (Very hard to come by, by the way!) You want to be around us and touched and cuddled, but you also want to be moving, and doing everything yourself.

At one, you are kind of sort of saying Mama, you blow bubbles, and you are taking about 8 steps at a time. You dance and sing (currently T-Swift is your fave), and stand and shake your booty. You love your chairs, food (anything, really but especially raspberries), you poop on schedule every day at 5am (not my favorite thing about you, I admit), and you nap and go to bed like a pro. Your thumbs are your BFF, and you love water and climbing the stairs.

You are smart and super aware of what's going on around you. You see and then you do. It's pretty impressive how you pick up on things happening around you. You are confident and spirited, and you love your people. And we sure love you.

Here's to all you are, and all you'll be little one. Thank you for choosing us. You're everything and more when we dreamed about you. You are our dream come true.

Happiest first birthday to you, and here's to many more to come.

Love,
Mama

Well, Friends - Here goes nothing!

If you've followed along on my journey via social media or here on my blog, you know there isn't much I've kept 'off the table'. I pretty much put it all out there. Sharing, in "real life" and on social media, is how I show vulnerability, and allow myself to relate and be relatable. Relationships and connections give me energy and life, and while it hasn't always been easy to put myself out there, it's always had such an incredible return. Over the years, I've gained so much by allowing myself to open up to family, friends, and strangers alike. When I do this, those who were once strangers quickly become friends, and over time, my friends, become family.

This year, my word is COURAGE. This special place is where I want to find the courage to be vulnerable, in writing, again. I am hungry to talk more about the beautiful and hard things that come along with being an evolving mama of three. As a Clean + Better Beauty Activist, I'd love to keep you in the know on all things #betterbeauty. Things like, fun #switchtosafer options for you and your family, cool Beautycounter promotions, offers, events, along with the many other clean brands that are worth looking at as we explore safer personal care and home products together. And lastly, as a professionally certified Solution-Oriented Coach, from time to time I'm pretty sure I'll offer insight that may interest you in your very own evolution - both personally and professionally.

A sincere thank you for coming along with me, and I look forward to connecting with you here, in a new way. 

Let's do this,