We’re THIRTEEN Moms Stronger! Introducing our Newest MMB Contributors!

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]We are so excited to introduce y’all to thirteen new members of the Memphis Moms Blog team! Each mom has her own vibrant personality, and we can’t wait for you all to get to know them both online and in person through upcoming posts and at our upcoming playdates this summer. We feel humbled, honored, and overjoyed to have each of these women join our team. Also, a huge thank you to Calli Smith Photography for capturing us so well!!! 

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Megan is a Memphis native. She is a mother of four, Logan (November 2005), Christian (December 2007), Alicia (February 2010), and Isabella (March 2016). She has been married to a Guatemalan native, Jorge, since 2005. They are a bilingual family. She is a teacher with a voluntary prekindergarten site for Shelby County Schools; teaching children is her passion. She is advancing her education at Western Governor’s University.  She also enjoys writing, reading, baking, cooking, going to church, and Hispanic culture.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14502″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14504″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Angela has Memphis running through her veins. Born and raised here, she loves traveling but Memphis is always home. There is no other city like it. Angela is the mom of three amazingly unique girls: Jordan (June 2003), Carmen (January 2009), and Norah (June 2014). Jordan has Autism and is a talented artist; Carmen is the entertainer that loves dancing and competitive cheering (yes, she is a cheer mom!), and Norah has Down Syndrome and is full of sass. Besides being a full-time mom and a full-time employee, she is also a full-time advocate for her girls with special needs. She enjoys spending time with her family creating memories, vacationing whenever the opportunity arises, and dancing in the kitchen while cooking. Her mottos for life are: with God all things are possible, every day is a new day to be grateful, and live to love and love to smile.  [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]LaShaun is a stay-at-home mom who moved to Memphis almost two years ago. She and her husband have seven children between the two of them, ranging from age 6 to age 25 (yes, you read that right). LaShaun enjoys exploring all that downtown Memphis has to offer with her family, walking with her husband or her GirlTrek friends, and experimenting with recipes found on her social media timelines (according to her husband, that can be a good OR bad thing). She doesn’t watch much television but her youngest children (ages 6 and 8) occasionally lend her the TV for “Law & Order” and “NCIS” marathons. But let the record show that no marathon will ever be as great as a “Monk” marathon in her mind. LaShaun also believes in advocacy, in both education and foster care, and runs a small nonprofit — Duffels4Kids — that provides free duffels to children in foster care.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14505″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14506″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Sabrina is not a Memphis native, but 901 is definitely her home. She works in accounting at one of Memphis’ top engineering firms.  She has two kiddos: BP (2009) and JP (2010).  She loves Jesus and the 49ers!  If the Powes aren’t on the ball field, you’ll likely run into them at the Memphis Zoo or CMOM!  She has been fostering for 4 years and has a passion for helping kids. Her favorite color is orange and she can quote any Disney movie you throw at her. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Erin grew up just outside of Nashville, but has been in the Memphis area for 9 years now. She’s a former middle school language arts teacher turned C.O.O. of the Lewis home (according to her hubs). She’s Mama to Livy (2013), who loves to sing, play soccer, and has special needs, and Will (2017) who is adorable and destructive, and wife to Chris (her college sweetheart) who is a pharmacist. Between volunteering herself to be the room mom (face palm), driving Livy to zillions of therapies, and keeping Will alive (aka: breastfeeding), life is busy. Erin loves the beach, a good cup of coffee, Target vacas by herself, and anything Harry Potter related (she ships Dramoine!). She hates high heels, rude people that stare at cute kids in wheelchairs, and bad tippers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14507″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14513″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Yasmin is a Southern newbie. Raised in the United Arab Emirates to a Californian mom and Syrian dad, she is a typical third culture kid (but avocado hummus is still blasphemy). She graduated from the University of the Pacific with a B.Sc. in CIS in 2001, spent eleven years in the corporate world, and escaped before the nylons were permanently grafted into her skin. Yasmin is a mom to two (Jul 2012, Sep 2014) and wife to one (Mar 1981). She knows a little about a lot, is a founding member of the Institute for Overanalysis Paralysis, and is addicted to reading reviews and sharing awesome finds. She enjoys building IKEA furniture, pilates and barre classes, following cookbooks, and taking things apart.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Originally from Kansas City, Kristin met her husband, a Seattle native, in Germany. The military brought them to Memphis, and they chose to stay after transitioning to Reserve duty. While it is hard to be away from family, they love this city so much that they bought a house in Midtown where they are raising two spunky daughters, E (May 2013) and L (January 2016). Kristin considers herself to be primarily a stay-at-home mom, but she occasionally escapes the shenanigans to teach college-level writing classes. If she had any spare time, she’d spend it curled up with a good book in a blissful state of hygge. Her family is happiest when on an adventure, especially camping, riding bikes, or enjoying all Memphis has to offer.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14508″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14509″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Michelle moved to Memphis to attend the U of M, and graduated with a degree in hotel management and hospitality. That passion for hospitality and all things Memphis led her to her position as a sales manager for a downtown hotel.  Michelle met her fiancé on Cinco De Mayo 9 years ago, and they will be (finally) getting married in Mexico this May (2018).  However, the best thing to happen to them in the month of May was the birth of their baby boy in 2017.  Their now one year old is a ball of silly, happy energy, and they love chasing him around!  Michelle also loves squeezing in time for group fitness classes, pinteresting, meal prepping, and enjoying cold beverages with friends.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Wife to Timothy for 8 years and mother to Wallace (October 2012) and Ari (July 2016), Laura believes in encouraging women in all seasons of their lives, and especially in the season of motherhood. She’s a first-generation Memphian, an advocate for adoption, a lover of words and the Word, and an avid science nerd, fascinated with GI physiology. Did you know the absorptive area of the human intestinal tract is roughly the size of a tennis court? Fascinating, right? Recently, she completed her Master’s in Clinical Nutrition to become a registered dietitian nutritionist. She’d like to say that she is a coffee aficionado, but she can’t. She navigates life un-caffeinated albeit mildly obsessed with hydration; she’d be more likely to forget what day it is before her water bottle. In recent years, friendship, wholeness, motherhood, and family have been the song of Laura’s heart, as she has been reawakened to the see the depths of love and grace. She counts it a great privilege to walk beside friends in the easy or the difficult, the ordinary or the unthinkable. For right where we are, there is grace enough, sufficient to carry us through the day. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14511″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14512″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Sarah Townsend Leach is a fundraising, communications, and leadership consultant living in Collierville. Sarah grew up in Nashville and has lived in quite a few places, but thanks to visiting grandparents in East Memphis throughout her childhood and attending Rhodes College in Midtown, this has always been a second (and now a primary!) home. She is an expecting first-time mom with Baby Girl Leach due in June 2018. Sarah and her husband met through both of their work in the Episcopal Church in 2015, after knowing all of the same people for several decades and never having met each other! In 2017, they got engaged, adopted a senior hound dog Zack, got married, bought a house, and discovered there was a baby on the way! Follow her journey through 2018: focusing on learning how to be a parent and finding a new life balance out in the burbs. Sarah loves trying new things, being outside, yoga, and crafting. Check out her Etsy site: Wayland Needle Works[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”12981″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”12979″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Rachel is a mother of 5, a wife of a recovering congestive heart failure patient, a runner, a sewist, a teacher, a dog mom: you know ALL THE THINGS! She has lived in the South her whole life and her family is  a Jewish family. She is also in grad school to get her EdS, and her kids range in age from 16-2, so they stay busy!![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Theryssa was born and raised in Collierville, TN, but is now a bona fide East Memphis resident, original hardwood and all. After graduating from The University of Memphis way back in the nineteen hundreds, she journeyed to Fort Worth, Texas for graduate school and snagged herself a Texas boy. Two kids (Samuel and Kate) and 15 years later, they all moved to Memphis. When she’s not homeschooling kids, running shuttles to basketball practice, and making dinners no one will eat, she can be found playing the oldies on her ukulele, fostering dogs, and picking up “junk” off the curb.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”14510″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][/vc_row]