Today’s guest on the Happy Hour Podcast is Rebecca Smith. Rebecca is the creator and owner of Better Life Bags and lives in Detroit with her husband and three kids. Her business has a remarkable impact on women in Detroit, who are earning a living by working for Better Life Bags.

On today's podcast we talk about how her business started, things you should do before we turn 30 (we are both past it!!), and how she can't do it all without the help she has - good word for us mommas trying to do it all! We also chat about how we made the decision on where to send our kids to school, why we don't see the news often, and of course our thoughts on Serial.

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Today’s guest on the Happy Hour Podcast is Jessica Thompson and gosh I just love her. I met her for the first time this summer and since then I have loved getting to know her more from afar. Jessica is an author and has some great books out about parenting. Please get your hands on at least one of her books before the end of this year.

In this podcast we discuss how neither one of us are good at buying gifts for our husbands. At the time we recorded this I was looking for a gift for Aaron for his birthday, and I had no idea what to get him. He's so hard for me to buy gifts for.

We spent a lot of time talking about Jessica's newest book that she co-authored with her mom, ANSWERING YOUR KIDS' TOUGHEST QUESTIONS. We both realize how difficult it is to talk with your kids about things that are so hard, but boy is it so necessary.

Of course we talked about SERIAL because we both love it so much. At the time we recorded there were six episodes, and now they are up to ten. If you haven't taken the time to dive into this, we both highly recommend!

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Today’s guest on the Happy Hour Podcast is my friend Tara Livesay. Tara lives in Haiti with her husband, Troy, and five of their seven kids. They have been living in Haiti for many years now and she works with Heartline Ministries and is a midwife. They average about 6-8 births a month at Heartline, and invest in the mom's lives from the beginning of pregnancy, during labor, and for post pregnancy support.

On this episode Tara and I discuss a lot about parenting. She's currently mom to seven that range from the age of 7 to early twenties. We also discussed short term missions and what that looks like to us Americans versus the Haitians. She gives us all great advice on how we serve the Haitian people in a healthy way.

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Today’s guests on the Happy Hour Podcast are Becca Harris and Maris Bush. Both of these ladies are heroes to me and they exhibit Jesus in their lives so much. I have known Maris for over ten years, and Becca and I met shortly after I moved to Austin six years ago. All of our families have been effected by adoption and during this podcast we dive into Becca & Maris' stories of how their families were brought together. We focus mostly on foster care, since Becca adopted her boys through the foster care system, and Maris and her husband Bush (his real name is Steven, but all his close friends call him Bush, so I'm giving you permission to do that as well) are currently fostering and hoping to adopt again as well.

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Jamie writes at THE VERY WORST MISSIONARY. Her and her husband live in California and have three boys, one of which has already grown up and lives on his own. Jamie and I met each other a few years ago through some mutual friends, although we have never met in person. Isn’t that cool how in 2014 you can have friends that you have actually never met face to face. Love it!

In this podcast we discussed our kids growing up (she says middle school is the hardest), sex trafficking, Jamie’s trips with Exodus Road, and how Jamie is supposed to be writing a book.

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This week's podcast is with my friends Kimberly and Laura who both live on my street and all of our husbands work together. This was just like a normal conversation that we would have over coffee, except there were no kids running around everywhere. Today we chatted about letting our kids walk to neighbors houses, how we do birthday parties, chores for our kids, and how I hate wearing jackets in the winter.

Although I've been a parent for longer than these two, these women both are moms that I highly look up to as parents and value their thoughts on motherhood, life and living on mission. Love them, and you will too!

Laura is one of my oldest friends and her and her husband, Jimmie who is a worship leader at the Stone, moved here to Austin with us six years ago. They have two two girls, Veda who is three, and Mercy who is one. They live down the street from us and we absolutely love doing life with them.

Kimberly also lives down the street from us, and her husband Stew is also on staff at the Stone. They have four kids, Wesley Grant who is 9, Sally who is 8, Kelly who is 7, and Karis who is six. Their son, Kelly, has been home one year from Haiti.

For a full summary and links for this show, click here!

Today’s guest on the Happy Hour Podcast is Kate Conner, who is the author of two books: Enough & 10 Things For Teen Girls. I first was introduced to Kate when I was given her book Enough to review. While reading her book I knew that I wanted to meet her and have her on the podcast, and I’m so happy that I did! She is just pure joy and someone that I would love to have lunch with often if we lived close enough to each other.

She writes at her site KATE CONNER where she encourages women, writes biblical truths, and simply shares her life with us.

For a full summary and links for this show, click here!

Happy Hour #19 is with my friend Gloria Furman. Gloria and her husband have four kid and live in Dubai, where they started a church. I met Gloria a few months ago at the Gospel Coalition Conference, although we had been internet friends for a while. She's just as lovely in person as she is online and that is what makes me love her. Gloria has written two books, GLIMPSES OF GRACE: TREASURING THE GOSPEL IN YOUR HOME and TREASURING CHRIST WHEN YOUR HANDS ARE FULL: GOSPEL MEDITATIONS FOR BUSY MOMS.

Gloria has a real heart for women to know Jesus and be fully captivated by him. She says, "I want to be obsessed with what I’m going to be obsessed with three zillion years from now—seeing and savoring Jesus."

For a full summary and links from the show, click here!

Happy Hour #18 is with my friend Jessi Connolly. Jessi and I are online friends and so it's always super fun when I get to talk in person with friends that I only know from the internet. I will actually meet Jessi next week when I fly to Indiana for The Influence Conference. I'm super excited about this conference because I get to meet tons of great people that I know online and I'll be speaking to the ladies there, so that's even more exciting!

Jessi and I talk about how it all gets done in her world (surprise - it doesn't!), her work out plan , how she handles social media, what the Influence Network is, and how the prints go from idea to finished product.

This podcast is shorter than the normal ones, but I will for sure be asking Jessi to join me again because I literally have 100 things I can chat with her about! Hope you enjoy it!

For the full summary and links to the show, click here!

Today's Happy Hour Guest is with my friend Courtney Lankford. Courtney and I met through our mutual friend Amy about 14 years ago. Courtney and her husband, Joey, moved to South Africa four years ago.

They currently serve there with Living Hope, where Joey helps them with creating jobs for men and women. They also run an agricultural business which helps create income and businesses for others.

She is honest about the hardest part about being in South Africa is them being away from their family and friends, although the blessing in this all is that God has honored their sacrifice and they really feel closer to their family.

Courtney and Joey have five kids, and one of their kids joined their family via adoption from Ethiopia.

For the full summary and links from this show, click here!