There’s something powerful about taking a story that lives in your heart and finally putting it into words.
I’m incredibly grateful to Motivational MD Publishing for helping me transform one story into a growing collection of books and, ultimately, a bigger vision for Fuel to Flourish™.
Sometimes writing a book doesn’t just tell your story. It helps you discover what you’re meant to do with it!
This week, the V5 turn thirteen. Thirteen. I sat with that sentence for a minute because for so long, our story was defined by the beginning. The shock of discovering there weren’t one, two, or even three babies growing inside me but five.
The appointments. The preparation. The uncertainty. The NICU. Then, the bottles and diapers and feeding schedules. Five car seats. Five cribs. Five tiny people who somehow needed us all at once.
When I wrote Bump to Baby(ies), I told the story of how our family began. It was a story about pregnancy, surrender, survival, and discovering courage when life multiplied in ways we never could have imagined.
That first season passed quickly. The days were long but the years short. They became toddlers with opinions. Preschoolers with personalities. Elementary schoolers discovering friendships, sports, strengths, and struggles. And now, somehow, they are teenagers.
People have asked us versions of the same question since the kids were born: How do you do it with five?
When they were babies, the answers were practical. Schedules. Systems. Preparation. Teamwork. And probably more coffee than medically advisable.
But as they grew, the question became much more complicated. How do we raise five children at the exact same age while honoring that they are five completely different people?
How do we create structure without controlling them?
How do we help them become resilient without protecting them from every struggle?
How do we teach responsibility while making home a place where mistakes are safe?
How do we stay connected as schedules, sports, school, friends, emotions, and independence begin pulling everyone in different directions?
And maybe the biggest question of all: How do we raise children who know they are deeply loved while preparing them to eventually walk into the world without us?
I definitely don’t have all the answers. Thirteen years into this parenting, social experiment, I’m more convinced of that than ever.
What I do have are lessons. Lots and lots of lessons. Some learned beautifully. Others learned the hard way.
One of the surprises of parenting has been realizing that children aren’t the only ones growing. The parents we were when five babies came home are not the parents we are today.
We’ve learned that connection matters more than control. That repair matters more than getting every interaction right. That our children can share the same home, the same parents, and even the same birthday and still need completely different things from us.
We’ve learned to laugh. We’ve learned to apologize. We’ve learned to have hard conversations. We’ve learned that sometimes the best parenting happens around the dinner table, driving to practice, or during a completely ordinary Tuesday night.
And we’ve learned that resilient families aren’t families without struggle. They’re families who learn how to move through struggle together. That became the heart of Baby(ies) to Big Kids.
Baby(ies) to Big Kids isn’t a story about how we figured out parenting. Quite the opposite. It’s about what we’ve learned while figuring it out.
The CALM parenting framework is about raising resilient kids while continuing to become resilient adults. It’s about communication rooted in curiosity, anchoring values, connection through words and actions, responsibility, emotional awareness, and creating a family culture intentionally even when real life is loud and messy.
And because reading about these ideas only takes us so far, the story grew again. I created companion workbooks for parents and youth so families could move from reading about resilience and connection to actually practicing them together. What began as a story had become a set of resources.
There’s another lesson woven throughout these thirteen years that deserves its own chapter: Family resilience doesn’t happen in isolation.
Our children have been shaped by grandparents, teachers, coaches, healthcare professionals, neighbors, friends, and people who have simply shown up again and again. So have I.
We have been privileged to grow up alongside two of our people, Alex and Danielle. Frank and Alex became best friends in high school, two kids from neighboring towns bonded by Seinfeld, classic rock, and countless hours writing and playing music in Alex’s basement before rocking talent shows and benefit concerts together. Their friendship followed them to college, where they joined the same fraternity and eventually served as president and vice president, and where Alex met Danielle, who quickly became part of our story, too. Over the years, the four of us have celebrated, struggled, built careers, raised families, laughed, challenged one another, and become family. We are iron that sharpens iron, but perhaps our greatest lesson has been that even strong people need a village.
Danielle has been part of ours through so many chapters, which makes it especially meaningful that she wrote the foreword to Baby(ies) to Big Kids. There is something incredibly special about having someone who has witnessed the messy middle of your story help introduce it to the world.
On the weekend of their thirteenth birthday, I find myself looking backward and forward at the same time. I can still see those five tiny babies. But I also see five young people becoming increasingly themselves. And I know the next chapter will bring questions I haven’t even thought to ask yet.
But this week? I’m going to celebrate five thirteen-year-olds. I’m going to marvel at the fact that somehow we made it from five NICU isolettes to five teenagers. And I’m going to remind myself that we still haven’t arrived. Thank goodness.
Happy 13th birthday, Theo, Bella, Lily, Kali, and Ellie!
What an extraordinary adventure it is to grow alongside you.
Arriving at motherhood.
Arriving at health.
Arriving at a credential.
Arriving at a career title.
Arriving at peace.
Like many of us, I have spent years believing that life would finally make sense once I reached the next milestone. If I could just make it through school. Build my career. Have a family. Find balance. Achieve success. Then I would finally feel like I had arrived.
But life has a remarkable way of rewriting our plans.
When I learned I was pregnant with quintuplets, every expectation I had for motherhood changed overnight. My carefully imagined future gave way to uncertainty, high-risk pregnancy, months of medical appointments, and eventually the quiet, sacred halls of the NICU. The destination I had envisioned disappeared, replaced by one I never would have chosen.
And yet, that’s where I first began to understand what flourishing really means.
It wasn’t found in having all the answers.
It wasn’t found in perfect health, perfect circumstances, or a perfectly predictable life.
It was found in the courage to keep growing anyway amidst a perfect mess.
Over the years, life has continued to teach me this lesson.
Sometimes flourishing looks like surviving the NICU one day at a time.
Sometimes it looks like rebuilding after heartbreak or disappointment.
Sometimes it looks like changing careers, embracing new opportunities, or letting go of a version of yourself you thought you had to become.
Sometimes it looks like sitting around the dinner table laughing with the people you love after an incredibly hard day.
Sometimes it looks like asking for help.
Sometimes it looks like extending grace to yourself.
Sometimes it simply looks like trying again tomorrow.
I’ve come to believe that flourishing isn’t reserved for people whose lives are easy. It’s available to every one of us. Not because our circumstances are perfect, but because growth is always possible if we choose it.
As both a healthcare leader and a mom, I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside thousands of people navigating some of life’s biggest battles. I have partnered with patients digesting a new diagnosis, families managing chronic illness, children building resilience, communities working toward better health, and people searching for hope in the midst of uncertainty.
What I’ve learned is that beneath every diagnosis, every challenge, every success, and every setback is the same universal question: How do we continue to grow when life doesn’t unfold the way we expected?
That question has shaped every part of my journey.
It inspired Bump to Baby(ies), where I shared the unexpected story of pregnancy, the NICU, and discovering courage in surrender.
It continued through Baby(ies) to Big Kids, where the focus shifted from surviving parenthood to intentionally raising resilient, connected families.
It found new life in workbooks created to help parents and children put those ideas into practice.
It expanded through Life is a Battle, And We Will Win, reminding young people that every challenge they face can become part of a story of hope, resilience, and perseverance.
And now, it has grown into something even bigger.
Fuel to Flourish™ isn’t simply a program or a collection of books. It’s a philosophy. A commitment. A movement rooted in one simple belief: Every person deserves the opportunity not just to survive but to flourish.
Whether that means helping a new mom feel less alone.
Supporting a child who is learning to navigate anxiety.
Equipping families with practical tools to strengthen connection.
Partnering with schools to build resilient students.
Collaborating with healthcare systems to create more compassionate, person-centered care.
Or working alongside communities to improve health from the inside out.
It’s all connected. Because flourishing isn’t about arriving. It’s about becoming.
It’s about choosing hope when circumstances feel uncertain.
Choosing connection when life feels busy.
Choosing courage when fear feels loud.
Choosing growth when giving up would be easier.
None of us will escape life’s battles. But together, we can learn to face them with resilience, compassion, and purpose.
My hope is that Fuel to Flourish becomes more than a collection of resources.
I hope it becomes a community where families feel supported, young people feel seen, healthcare becomes more human, and every person is reminded that flourishing isn’t something we earn once we’ve reached perfection. It’s something we practice every single day.
So whether you’re navigating pregnancy, parenting, adolescence, illness, career transitions, or simply trying to become the person you were created to be…
Welcome. I’m so grateful you’re here. Because this journey isn’t about arriving. It’s about flourishing together.
For a long time, health was measured by what we could see; Blood pressure. Weight. Lab values. Physical endurance. If those checked out, we called ourselves “healthy.” But something has shifted. We’re beginning to understand that mental and social wellbeing aren’t secondary – they are foundational. You can be physically “fine” and still be carrying a level of emotional weight that quietly erodes your quality of life.
And the data is catching up to what many have been feeling:
Here in the Midwest, including communities across Wisconsin, these trends are showing up in our schools, our workplaces, and our homes.
Struggling doesn’t always look like falling apart. Sometimes it looks like showing up… while quietly unraveling.
There’s a version of strength that gets praised in our culture; the ability to push through, stay composed, keep going no matter what. But there’s a cost to that kind of strength when it comes at the expense of processing what we carry.
Unresolved guilt.
Shame we never spoke out loud.
Hurt we minimized.
Forgiveness we haven’t fully worked through.
These don’t just disappear because we stay busy. They settle. And over time, that emotional weight doesn’t stay contained to the mind, it begins to show up in the body. It can look like irritability that feels disproportionate to the situation. Exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix. A sense of numbness where joy used to live. When we carry things we haven’t acknowledged, the body keeps score in quiet, persistent ways. Holding it together isn’t the same as being okay.
We often think of “impact on the body” as something reserved for major trauma. And while trauma absolutely leaves a physiological footprint, it’s not the only thing that does. Chronic, unrelenting stress – the kind that feels manageable day-to-day – can have a profound biological effect over time. When the body perceives stress, it releases cortisol. In short bursts, that’s helpful. It keeps us alert and responsive (think fight or flight). But when stress becomes constant, cortisol stays elevated. And that matters because sustained high cortisol levels are associated with increased visceral adiposity (fat stored around vital organs) which is linked to higher risks of cardiovascular disease, metabolic dysfunction, and inflammation. In other words: the body responds to emotional strain as if it were a physical threat.
This isn’t about blame – it’s about awareness.
Because the same system that responds to stress can also be supported and regulated. Small, consistent practices can help. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s giving the body signals of safety again.
There’s a concept introduced by Dr. Kim Whitmore in her book Grateful and Grieving that resonates deeply: the “ampersand” moments. The idea that two things can be true at the same time.
You can be grateful and grieving.
Strong and struggling.
Functioning and not okay.
That tension isn’t something to fix, it’s something to acknowledge. For many of us, the turning point doesn’t come from a dramatic breakdown. It comes from a quiet moment of honesty: Something feels off… and I’m willing to notice it.
Naming a feeling doesn’t make it worse. It makes it visible. And visibility is where change begins.
Even when your mind tells you to push it down. Even when old messages from childhood, culture, or expectation tell you to “get over it.” You’re allowed to feel what you feel.
When everything feels heavy, the answer isn’t to overhaul your life overnight. It’s to start small and start honestly. Here are a few simple ways to begin:
A 5-Step Grounding Exercise
This brings your body out of overwhelm and back into the present.
Name the Feeling (Without Fixing It)
Instead of “I’m fine,” try:
Clarity reduces internal tension.
Control What You Can, Release What You Can’t
Draw two columns:
Seeing it visually helps your brain stop trying to solve the unsolvable.
Gentle Body Reset
A short walk. Stretching. Deep breathing. Not as punishment but as support.
One Honest Conversation
With yourself, or someone you trust. You don’t have to carry everything alone.
You don’t have to solve everything today. You don’t have to unpack every layer of what you’ve been carrying. But you can start here:
Name one thing that’s been sitting beneath the surface.
Acknowledge it without minimizing it.
And take one small step forward.
Because progress in mental health doesn’t come from force. It comes from awareness followed by gentle action.
In the next piece, during Mental Health Awareness Month, I’ll be inviting a perspective that’s often missing from this conversation – our kids. Not as observers of mental health, but as participants in it.
Through their own words, we’ll explore what it looks like to experience emotions, pressure, resilience, and growth in the first 12 years of life. Because mental health isn’t something we arrive at later. It’s something we’re building together from the very beginning.
I remember the moment, those two lines appeared. We locked eyes realizing life just changed.
I remember the “2-week wait” which felt like forever. The kind of forever that a child feels as they await each minute until their birthday party, or the kind of wait when there’s silence in the room. The wait of not knowing what they’ll say, what it all means, what’s next.
I remember the drive to the fertility clinic that day in March which was clouded with anticipation, fear and wonder. We hadn’t planned this. There was no IVF. But we had a hint that something unordinary was around the corner given that my initial HCG was 493 and then jumped to 1333 just 4 days later.
I remember the ultrasound room. The technician’s cold hands, the even cooler jelly on my belly. I remember the feeling as they scanned the landscape as if we were explorers uncovering new treasures with each inch of the wand’s movement across my stomach.
I remember the silence before the technician spoke and the sinking feeling as she counted. I remember realizing my life would never return to singular – we were in the era of the plural. The us became a we. It was no longer yours and mine. It was ours.
I have narrated the stories and life lessons in this blog for more than a decade. It has become more than a journey from a bump to baby(ies). This story is about the journey we all take from surprise to confidence, from disorganized to-do’s to controlled chaos, from fear to surrender.
Parenting and caregiving focuses on the bundle(s) of joy but we need to create space to grow, too. We are called to transform with them through every age and stage. Bump to Baby(ies) isn’t just about pregnancy and parenting. It’s about what happens when life multiplies faster than your capacity feels ready for.
This is my why for breaking the blog out of it’s box and into a book. That’s right, I’m birthing a book!
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing pieces of this journey as the manuscript heads to final edit and then on into the hands of those who I hope and pray will blossom from its message.
Sweet Bella Bean continues to walk to the beat of her own drum. She remains our fearless fashionista who can make any pattern or color scheme work. Her pace of life is about as fast as the clouds passing by. Her cadence paired with her empathy is a divine recipe. She has a sixth sense about noticing God’s handiwork from natural anomalies to a water color sunset. Bella is also the first to know who needs a hug. Her big hugs squeeze the hardship right out of you, leaving room for all her love she has to share.
Now, a look back at Bella’s last year!
Belle at eight years…
Bella at seven years…
Bella at six years…
Bella at five years…
Bella at four years…
Bella at three years…
Bella at two years…
Bella at one year…
Bella’s First Year…
My buddy and Dad’s best friend is living his best life. This budding second baseman would spend all of his waking hours playing ball with his neighborhood buddies. And, this summer, he has! Theo loves routine and he’s pleased with a copy and paste type of day. However, watch out when he and Bella get the giggles because they’re unstoppable. Their sillies don’t cease until they say so. It is a true privilege to watch this young man tackle life and learn from his inquisitiveness, gentle nature and saint-like patience.
Now, a look back at Theo’s last year!
Theo at Eight Years…
Theo at Seven Years…
Theo at Six Years…
Theo at Five Years…
Theo at Four Years…
Theo at Three Years…
Theo at Two Years…
Theo’s First Year…
Ellie Rose continues to find her way to the top in all that she does from schoolwork to gymnastics. They told us she’d be our determined one with all of the complication in utero and they were right! She is wise beyond her years and always able to call out the elephant in the room with ease and clarity. If she doesn’t find her way into the Oval Office in 2053 we are hedging bets that she’ll be a compassionate leader wherever she lands.
Now, a look back at our Ellie Rosie over the last year!
Ellie at eight years…
Ellie at seven years…
Ellie at six years…
Ellie at five years…
Ellie at four years…
Ellie at three years…
Ellie at two years…
Ellie at one year…
If you really want to turn back the clock, check out Ellie’s First Year…
Silly Lily Grace has a heart of gold and a contagious smile! She is always ready to lend a hand and loves to fold laundry, a divine gift in this household. She spends the majority of her day in a magical world of her own and the other half seeking sibling playmates. Lily remains our early bird, up by six and on a mission for her banana, raisin bread and sunny side egg. Her day is not done until she has a “night pride” mission with Uti the koala at her side.
Join me as we take a look back at Lily’s last year!
Lily at eight years…
Lily at seven years…
https://player.vimeo.com/video/734542425?h=bf1a09cd5e
Lily at six years…
Lily at five years…
Lily at four years…
Lily at three years…
Lily at two years…
Lily at one year…
Lily’s First Year…
Make-believe Lily is always up for an adventure! Her magical schemes lead her out into the yard using sticks as sceptors riding imaginary horses and jaquins. While she is not your everyday princess, Lily’s magical spirit and transform a room from gloom to laughter.
She is a natural entertainer and hopes to foster her skills at singing and playing the ukelele. Thank you to Uncle JD and Papa Ron for her lessons!
Lily is also an animal lover and is committed to helping Cooper (our new goldendoodle) stay active everyday. She also makes it a point to say good morning and goodnight to Mittes, our kitty, too.
Lily’s eyes are set on becoming a baker when she grows up. She hopes to own her own cafe where she is the lead cook and baker and keeps a secret menu for those who may not have enough money to pay for their own meal. I have a lot to learn from Ms. Lily’s perspective on life.
Join me as we take a look back at Lily’s last year to the tune of Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves…
Lily at seven years…
Lily at six years…
Lily at five years…
Lily at four years…
Lily at three years…
Lily at two years…
Lily’s First Year…
Building strong bodies, grounded minds, and emotional resilience
Fuel to Flourish™ 