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I’ve been really working hard lately to work and perfect my own confidence. I don’t think it’s anything I’ll ever fully have down or be well “perfect” at, but I’m trying and want to make sure I’m portraying my best, confident self especially for my little girl. From the moment I found out I was pregnant, Marcus and I kind of decided that words like “fat” and “ugly” and just you know – not nice words about yourself or anyone, wouldn’t be words we used. Especially in front of Blake. But here’s the thing, at first I found myself just spelling “f-a-t” out to Marcus to complain about my body or silly things and imperfections. So rather than you know “saying” them – I’d spell it. You know, so she didn’t know what I was saying, but was that really helping the whole point? Nope. I quickly realized, even if I spelled out all of my “flaws” and what I saw as “imperfections” doesn’t mean I’m not showing her my lack of confidence in areas.

The reality was – I had to ACTUALLY be confident in myself, in my body + in myself as a Mom, woman, boss, wife + all the departments. I want her to feel comfortable in her own skin and remember that she’s beautiful and perfect in her own way, like we all our, but I had to believe that for myself, about myself before I could even show her that. So I quickly started to work on shutting those thoughts down. It wasn’t an over night and that doesn’t mean they don’t pop back up – insecurity has a way of doing that. But, like a few of you guys pointed out a few weeks ago when I posted about something Blake said – she only sees the best in me and that’s how I should see myself. I posted a few weeks ago about how I was asking her these questions from a little Mom questionnaire like “what does Mommy like to do?” etc, and almost every answer she answered had to do with me working. It literally hurt so badly. Then several of you said, you’ve got to change the context, she’s not saying it in a bad way, she’s saying “My Mom is REALLY good at her work and I love that about her!” /  She didn’t see it as a bad thing, so why should I? She knows I’m trying my best, she knows I’m there for her first no matter what.

This exact same mindset goes into the way we talk and think about ourselves too and our bodies. These little daughters (and sons) we are raising see us in this incredible, strong, light and that’s what they feed off of. So it’s a work in progress, but I’m doing my very best to show Blake that we love ourselves exactly how we are, we embrace it, we work hard at things + ultimately – we believe in ourselves, because we should.

Which leads to my entire point about shoes. We snapped these pictures for my new Keds and this entire post (which you guys need these + you know my entire obsession with Keds). But the entire time while shooting Blake had an entire conversation with me about “how cute we looked in our dresses + how smart it was for us to twin” – it was simple, little, things that honestly weren’t that big of a deal. But I loved watching her smile and believe in herself. You know what I’m saying? She felt good in her skin, she didn’t worry about a size, about the way something looked, she just knew she liked the dress she and I were wearing and that we were “twinning” in a way. I watched her that morning do the same thing about her hair, she told me EXACTLY what she wanted. You can’t see the back – but she has three ponytails, because that’s what she wanted and she was confident in it and I said YES, girlfriend you do you. I want you to be yourself. It’s just simple little things like this that make my heart happy and help remind me to believe in myself and let her do, her. I want her to remember her strength and confidence and it all starts now.

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Now let’s talk shoes a little more 😉 Because I know y’all want to know about these. They’re the Champion Solids in Coral AND I LOVE THEM. Keds just has a message behind them though that goes with this entire blog post + my entire beliefs. Keds empowers women to be who they want to be and go where they want to go. Their shoes are creating for any and all things and I wear them exactly like that, with a dress, jeans, sweats, literally they rock all around. You can shop them all on Zappos, here.