Meet Lara of Overstuffed Life

My name is Lara, and I like to wear hats. The hats I wear are a bit more on the figurative side, but I like literal hats, too.

The hat I wear most often is my Mom to Three Daughters Hat. It used to look like this, and it is my favorite hat. It wasn’t always pretty and was usually pretty dirty, but it brings me more joy than any other hat I own.

In 2023, 18 years after I started this website, my daughters aren’t little anymore. But I still wear my Mom Hat on a daily basis for these three much bigger girls!

I have a Wife Hat, too. It’s pretty amazing, because it means I get to be married to this guy and take part in his awesomeness every day of my life. He is a Professor of Music at the local university and conducts orchestras for a living.

I met my husband while I was wearing my Singer Hat. For a while, this hat got hung up in the back of my closet and rarely came out except to sing lullabies to my children. It has been dusted off in the last few years, though, and I have had many opportunities to wear it, along with some pretty amazing dresses.

I have more recently acquired a Photographer Hat, which has brought a new kind of happiness to my life. It’s one of my favorite hobbies and I sometimes share a few photography tutorials here with you.

After the kids have gone to sleep at night, I like to get out my Reading Hat and cuddle up in bed with a good book. There’s nothing quite like it for recharging the soul and being ready to put the Mom Hat back on in the morning. Plus, I like to review the books I am reading sometimes on my blog. I’m also passionate about teaching my children to love reading, so I talk a lot about reading for kids as well.

In the course of reading this blog, you may discover that I occasionally wear several other hats. I have an LDS hat which is a very special hat—my faith is an integral part of who I am. Sometimes I get out my Sewing and Crafty Hats, but if I’m going to be crafty at all, I’m usually doing it in my Home Prettifying Hat.

I love to make and share printables. There are printables for all sorts of holidays, household needs, and to help make parenting easier.

I really like to put on my World Traveler Hat whenever I can. I especially love to travel with my family, but girls’ getaways with my friends are refreshing and help me come back to being a mom with more purpose.

I wear a Gluten Free Hat because I have to. My youngest daughter has Celiac and I am also gluten-free. I love to share tips for gluten-free living and some of the GF recipes my husband comes up with (he’s the one with the Chef Hat at our house, not me!).

All women have lives that are overstuffed—each of us wears many different hats. Hopefully, you’re able to find something here that will help you wear your own hats with more joy! My hope is to simplify stuff like cleaning the house so we can really focus on living a truly joyful life!

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