Dallas finally had its first real cold snap, and of course that meant all five of my boys suddenly needed warmer clothes right now . Normally I’d dive into the mountain of hand-me-downs, but with our office and the kids’ rooms mid-move (…three weeks in and still not done), the thought of dragging out more bins just felt like adding chaos to chaos. So I took the easy route: the thrift store. I ended up finding two pairs of pants for each boy 10 pairs total plus the cutest jack

My 2 year old has more freedom than my five year old

I have not slept through the night since April, and even then it was only temporary. Right now we do not have a dedicated room for the baby. Eventually she will share a room with two of the older kids. They are wonderful and helpful, but they are also kids. They leave stuffed animals, toys, and every now and then a rogue Lego that a baby could choke on. So for now Danielle, who is eight months old, sleeps in a crib at the foot of our bed. Every time she cries, she wakes me up

Today has been one of those days where no matter what I do, the house looks like it exploded. Every other Thursday the common areas get professionally cleaned, which is supposed to help. But even on those days the house still feels like a battlefield. My bedroom is a disaster. The kids’ rooms are disasters. The hallway looks like a storage unit staged by a raccoon. The only room that is even close to clean is the office. And that is a whole story on its own. We had to move ou

Sometimes, in a house with eight people, six kids, and a whirlwind of daily chaos, you have to adjust your expectations. You can’t have a spotless home all the time—it’s just not realistic. But what you can have is one small corner of peace. One tiny slice of calm that belongs to you.

It took me longer to recover this time after having child number six, but I am finally back on my feet and moving again. And honestly, my heart feels full. I forgot how much I love photography until I picked up my camera again. I had a senior session recently and it lit me up from the inside. I have another senior session coming up, a corporate session on the books, another one in the works, and even a wedding scheduled. And that wedding is at our own church, which feels magi

So I went through a drive-thru today with my breast pump on. I try not to do that too often, but sometimes the timing just works out that I have to be pumping right then and I also need food. It happens. To be clear, I was not sitting there with everything out in the open. I had my T-shirt over everything. My nursing bra was on, the pump parts were attached, and the tubes were tucked under my shirt. From the outside it probably looked like I had two small, slightly lumpy robo

I see you.... you're counting my kids

A few weeks ago we had a school holiday assembly, the kind with songs and motions and tiny kids doing their absolute best. My two elementary kids, the kindergartener and the third grader, were performing. And honestly, I should have known better. I’ve been attending these things for eight years, since my oldest was in kindergarten. But somehow… I didn’t. Somewhere in the chaos of the morning, me making bottles, watching an 8-month-old crawl across the floor, and having two or

At some point, I realized: it’s not a lack of storage. It’s the sheer volume of stuff. Eight people generate an impossible amount of things, and while I can control my own little corner, I can’t control everything that walks through the door—or gets carried in by my kids, dog, or Amazon deliveries.

I Clean, Therefore I Am (Tired) There’s a special kind of exhaustion that comes with being the designated cleaner in a house full of...

Company’s coming in 15 minutes.” Suddenly, your house—full of toys, school papers, laundry, and random crumbs—is a ticking time bomb, and somehow it has to transform into something resembling a home people actually want to be in. Cue the 15-minute fake clean. This is an art form. A combination of ninja-level shoving, strategic placement, and a healthy dose of hope.

Mornings are chaos with six kids to get ready and out the door. Then it’s on to my job, my photography work, cooking, and trying to wrangle a house that constantly feels one step away from being featured on a “before” episode of a cleaning show. By the time the day is done, I’ve squeezed in all the “work work” and the “home work,” and what’s left? Maybe thirty minutes of TV before bed, if I’m lucky.

Cue flashbacks to my last interview, where my 8-year-old walked in wearing nothing but underwear—even though the door was locked. So yes, this time, I was determined to get the background situation under control.

Instead of buying individual meals, we buy in bulk: a couple pizzas, a Bueno box loaded with tacos and burritos, a 30-piece nugget tray from Chick-fil-A, or 40 McNuggets and two large fries for $17 at McDonald’s. Feeding everyone this way saves us at least $30–40 a trip.

Even my husband, who wouldn’t recognize flirting if it walked up and smacked him in the back of the head, noticed. He leaned over and said, “Yeah, she’s definitely flirting.”

But here’s the reality: Marie Kondo doesn’t live in a house with six kids. She doesn’t deal with the endless influx of toys, papers, clothes, random sports equipment, and “I’ll just put this here for now” items that magically multiply overnight. She doesn’t have a kid who hides their art project in the pantry, crams wrappers behind the washing machine, or sticks Legos into the laundry basket.

Her teacher, a wise woman who had also taught my older son, told me: “I think Emily matured so much through her experience that she’s having trouble relating to the other kids. They’re still doing ‘kid stuff,’ and she’s just… beyond that.”

Let me tell you about a little life hack that has been game-changing  for my budget: I detached my credit card from all online accounts,...

So instead of waiting until I have all the shoes lined up perfectly, I’m just grabbing the toddler’s and throwing them in with the next load. Because honestly? I’ll be doing 15 loads of laundry this week anyway. At least two of them will be towels and jeans—the perfect “shoe loads.”