I'm a thirty-four year old mom of three children: Kaylee, age 7, Braeden, age 4, and Cristian, 11 months. I've been married to my high school sweetheart, Nate, for nine years, and I stay at home with my kids and also care for my two year old niece, Caitlyn, three days a week.
I first became vegetarian in high school when I was sixteen, and my current husband/then boyfriend became vegetarian a short while after because I told him I couldn't kiss him after he had eaten meat! Ha ha! I always knew there had to be something wrong with eating dairy and eggs and toyed with the idea of becoming vegan, but Nate thought he could never do it. After he read a newspaper article while traveling on business about seven years ago concerning the "improvements" that were being made to factory farmed chickens' living conditions, he called me from the airplane and said, "I think we need to go vegan!", and we switched over that day. Go Nate! Kaylee was about 8 or 10 months old then, so she's basically been vegan from birth, and my other two kids have always been vegan.
We've adopted two of our kids from foster care, and may adopt one more if my husband agrees, so I've had experience adopting "as a vegan"--and it has been a positive one! I love being around children and having a full house, and I have grown to LOVE cooking since we've became vegan. Looking back to my eating habits as a vegetarian, I can see how lacking in variety and nutrition they were and how much veganism has improved our health. Hooray for veggies!
Sarah and I met several years ago when our daughters were in the same kindergarten class and quickly became great friends. I know we are SO LUCKY to have met each other and have our kids go to the same school (a great thing for the kids, too), and I love Sarah's positive, go-get-em' attitude. She is an amazing mom and I am proud to write along side her in our blog!
I am a proud vegan mama and have no doubt that we are doing the right thing by raising our kids vegan. They are so compassionate, healthy, happy and have so much confidence. I love sharing my ideas about child-rearing and love getting advice, too. One any given day, I can be found cooking and cleaning with my iPod blaring, or dancing in the living room with my kids! I hope you enjoy my blog entries, because I love writing them. Thank you to our readers for using your precious time to read what's on my mind!
xoxo
Tami
