Hi, I’m Emily! I’m mama to three boys (ages 6, 9, and 13), as well as two dear angel-babies. I am lucky wife to my love. I intuitively knew in my heart he was the one before my brain got it. Here I am with my loves and you can meet them up close here:

Nine years into marriage and four cross-globe moves later, I was rewired by the 68-hr birth of our first babe. Six months later, I traded meetings at UCLA with a sling full of nursing baby for full-time motherhood by the rolling hills of central Virginia.

Since then, I’ve had part-time stints as an international ed consultant, writer, and an entrepreneur. But I’m currently loving life without paid work deadlines. I’m just savoring this moment, homeschooling my three children and aware of kid deadlines. ‘Cause let’s face it, they don’t come with a pause button. Blink and these fledglings will fly this nest…woosh. beautiful. inevitable. life-changing.

Even if I hadn’t been born in Asia to an American mother and Persian father, I think I’d feel at home in the world. I am a member of the Baha’i Faith, and that simply means I “love all the world.” Here’s a graphic I created with my husband that speaks to my heart on this:

I am grateful for the ocean of inspiration and guidance in the Baha’i Sacred Writings. They are mind-blowing and soul-reviving. And they cheer me on in my role of a lifetime as a mama. I love my faith.

I love beauty and thirst for knowledge of all sorts. I love constantly learning alongside my kids. I’m trying to cure my bad habit of making new dishes for guests. I’m working on curing my desire for a clean house for guests and surrendering to life as we know it. Freeing.

I love capturing images that touch my heart and take my breath away. I love how nature stuns and restores me. I loved worms as a kid and gardens now. I fell in love with the sea butterfly this summer. Magical.

I love hiking, travel, and connecting with peoples from our human family. And service. So I’d love to meet a mama on top of a Mongolian mountain and help her make yak cheese. And no doubt come home richer from her touching my heart.

I love children and childhood. I love giggles, couch-forts, and skipping. I love the sounds of my sweet children breathing, singing, humming. Except when it’s that dang Star Wars theme again. Seriously, it’s like a sound tattoo I can’t undo. I find myself humming it a bit too often. It makes my kids smile.

I love blissful days of messy kitchens, art explosions, lego mania, dirty feet, and happy hearts. (And I’d love a house elf. Or two. But kids who fold their own laundry are a good sub. As is my darling Swedish-clean-gene husband.)

I love period dramas, a good rom-com, gripping fiction, and masterful sci fi. I love a good book that makes me laugh so hard it hurts.

I have a love of all things water. So life-giving. I felt a transformative moment in my first-ever swimming lesson recently. I now know I absolutely love floating in water and feeling the universe’s embrace. Ah.

I love LOVE. Kindness. Forgiveness. And chocolate. Sigh.