Probably most of us grew up hearing that we need to be grateful for the things we have,  the life we are so blessed to live, our health, our families… because not everybody is as fortunate.  Words like these often go in one ear and out the other when you’re a kid just like everything else.  Even for adults gratitude can be a fleeting thought from time to time, and unfortunately it may take something tragic for us to truly feel or express it.  This is just the way things are- maybe we’re selfish or maybe we just don’t know HOW to express and practice gratitude.  Gratitude is important because it not only feels good, but it inspires us to do more good in the world.  It makes us more joyful, loving, giving, and caring.  It makes us better spouses, mothers, and friends.  It isn’t a virtue to be taken lightly, but for so long I definitely did.
I’ve been on a personal development journey for several...

It’s funny, I was sitting down to write and I found so many of THESE words coming back out on the paper along with the need to share them again. If I could encourage anyone to do anything it would be to take action on THE THING you want to do. The one thing that seems to hold us all back is fear. It holds me back too, but here is what I’ve learned about fear… It can ruin us, or it can save us. Over this past year I have gotten so much braver and made choices to do things I would have never done before. With each brave decision I’m strengthening that muscle and learning how to get past fear. That’s what happens! At the same time if you decide not to face your fears each time it gets harder.

What the world needs now is someone brave just like you to do the thing on your heart. People need to see more people like themselves going for it. If we learned anything from the tragedy with Kobe Bryant and the rest of the people on his helicopter, we learned that...

Last year I wrote a blog post about how to choose your word for the year. (You can read the post by clicking here.) I am not typically excited by practices like this, but I find this one really helpful and think you will too.

Choosing a “word for the year” is simply being very intentional about how you plan to spend your year. Your word for the year represents how you want to feel, what you plan to do, and why you want to do it. It’s attacking the year with an underlying plan, so you aren’t just winging it. The best part is, when you look back on your year you get to look back at your successes, failures, and all the lessons. You’ll easily be able to celebrate the wins and see where you went wrong at times.

Last year, I chose 2 words- GIVE and ACTION. I truly wanted to see how much better my life would be if I focused on giving. In the past I would always think about giving and doing more, but then life got busy and my hopes of giving...

It’s really difficult to explain why my husband and I, parents of 4 young kids, would ever want to take on something as serious as foster parenting. For years and years this has been on my mind, but I told myself it was something I would take on when my kids got older and life was less difficult. I needed another kid like I needed a hole in the head, but there it was, over and over, every single day. A single thought that I simply could not get out of my mind. I NEVER talked about it, but I thought about it so much and it made me so nervous that it would make my heart race and I’d lose many hours of sleep.

I had SO MANY fears.

Why or HOW could we ever take this on?

What would people say?

What would our families think? They’d think I had officially lost it!

How on Earth would I ever give a baby back after caring for and loving it for so long? I couldn’t, that was my answer!

How would my kids deal with this? Would I be robbing them of much needed...

I can honestly say that I am almost always happy.  Sounds kinda annoying when I actually type it out, but it’s true.  Choosing happiness above all is at the core of who I am, but it wasn’t always this way.

My own “personal development” started getting serious just over 5 years ago when I began my own business.  I had dabbled in it prior to this when my twins were first born so I thought I knew what it was all about… a bunch of touchy-feely-self helpy stuff and I really didn’t think I needed any of it.  Little did I know how important it was and how life changing it would turn out to be.  I was always the person to roll my eyes about things like this, but I have found that personal development is a process of learning about who you are, what makes you tick, and what you’re meant to do with your life.  Then it helps you figure out how to put it all together, and cultivate the skills to live with a...

Here’s the deal.  It’s like ridiculously hard being a mother and sometimes it feels like we have lost ourselves completely.  Everything has changed.  Let me repeat, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED.  How we spend our time, how we feel about our careers, how our clothes fit, the way our body metabolizes food, our energy level, our hair texture… need I go on?  I mean, fat on my back?  How did that happen? All in the blink of an eye.

When it comes to fashion, style, and self care it can be nearly impossible to even care. I mean, most days we can barely complete a thought (#mombrain is such a real thing) and what’s the point of dressing nicely when your clothes are just going to be covered in fingerprints, spit up, and boogers?  Well here’s the thing, this stuff actually IS important.  Not for the sake of vanity, but for the sake of a person’s mental well-being.  It’s not just happening to you, it happens to...