Hi, I’m Kris.

I homeschool seven kids — ages 4 to 17 — while working full-time as a senior leader at a tech company, and helping my husband as he and another pastor plant the church we’re part of. If you just read that sentence and thought “that sounds like a lot,” you’re right. It is. And I’m going to be honest with you about that instead of pretending otherwise.

The short version of my life

By day, I lead a team of UX designers, product managers, and catalogue specialists at a tech company that was acquired by a major national retailer over a decade ago. I’ve spent my career translating complicated technical ideas into plans real teams can actually execute — which, it turns out, is not so different from translating a homeschool curriculum into a plan seven kids at different levels can actually follow.

By calling, I’m a pastor’s wife. My husband and another pastor planted Providence Church Katy in January 2025 — which means that alongside homeschooling and a full-time career, I also help with our women’s ministry and handle a good chunk of the church’s administrative tasks.

By calling (the first one, really), I’m a mom of seven — spanning kindergarten all the way through high school. Every academic stage you can imagine is currently happening somewhere in my house, often in the same hour.

Why “Every Year Gets Better”

I named this blog after something I’ve watched be true again and again: the years don’t get easier — but your capacity slowly increases. Obedience over time bears fruit, and part of that fruit is the capacity to handle more than you thought possible. I’ve lived through toddler years, through foster care and adoption, through planting a church, and every single time, I came out the other side able to carry more than I could before. Not because I’m exceptional. Because that’s what God does with the years He gives us.

How Our Family Grew

LJ and I were married eight years before we had children — eight years of hoping, trying, and waiting. Then God answered in a unique way: through foster care. Within a short window, we welcomed three boys into our home and our hearts. Two weeks after our third son came home, we found out I was pregnant — with twins.

The timeline still makes me laugh when I say it out loud: one Mother’s Day, I had no children. The next Mother’s Day, I had five. Five kids under one roof within twelve months, arriving through two completely different paths.

I won’t pretend that year was easy. It wasn’t. The highs were high and the lows were low, and there were nights I genuinely didn’t know how we’d make it to morning. But God was present in every single one of those nights — not distant, not absent, but right there teaching me who He is and what parenting actually asks of a person. Since then, He’s grown our family further, bringing us to seven. Every one of them reminds me that God’s plan for our life is far better than our own.

That’s part of why “Every Year Gets Better” isn’t just a nice sentiment for me. I watched capacity I didn’t know I had show up exactly when I needed it — not because I found some reserve of strength, but because grace met me there.

What you’ll find here

I write for the version of me from a few years ago — the mom who believed homeschooling and Scripture-shaped parenting mattered, but couldn’t figure out how any of it was supposed to fit around a real job and a full life. You’ll find:

Practical systems — the actual schedules, tools, and shortcuts that let me run a household of nine without losing my mind (or my job)
Curriculum reviews — honest, tested-with-real-kids opinions, not sponsored puffery
Faith woven through real life — Scripture (ESV) applied to the actual mess of parenting and working, not a Sunday-school version of it
The hard parts too — the seasons that didn’t feel like growth while I was in them

A little about my faith

I hold a conservative Christian worldview, and it shapes everything here — not as a disclaimer, but as the actual reason any of this is worth doing. I believe Scripture is true and sufficient, and I write from that conviction while trying never to be preachy about it. My goal is for faith to show up the way it actually does in my life: woven through the ordinary moments, not sitting apart from them.

Start with: Why We Homeschool: The Real Reasons (Not Just the Pretty Ones)