Meet Leslie Kvasnicka
Hi Austin mamas! I’m Leslie Kvasnicka (ka-vas-ni-cka) and I’m so honored to be a part of this incredible group of women, navigating together this amazing calling of “motherhood” in this great city of Austin that we all call home. I believe in the power of storytelling in that it connects us to one another in real and vulnerable ways. So that’s why I’m here!
So to start with my story, I’m a Texas girl in every way that the title affirms. I grew up in Waco, back when it was a small town that people just drove on through. After college, I moved to the big city of Dallas, where I met my husband, Justin (tall, dark, handsome). I was working in the marketing department for American Airlines and also taking night classes to apply for nursing school, my true career passion. We married in May of 2009 (so we’re about to celebrate our 10 year anniversary…woot woot). Just 14 months after saying “I do”, we packed up our entire life into a U-haul truck and moved to cold, snowy upstate New York for a two year adventure and some grad school classes.
2012 was a defining year for us. Our first baby was born on a cold Tuesday afternoon in February of that year, after a MONDAY morning induction at 41 weeks. (I seriously worried he might stay inside forever). I had always known that I wanted to be a mother, but I also loved my career in pediatric nursing. I’d never seen my life as a stay-at-home mom, but when he was just three months old, we made our big move back to Texas and I couldn’t imagine going through a new RN orientation in a new city. We decided that life made more sense for our family if I stayed home with our son and we organized our life to fit inside one income. We had made it work during grad school, right?
Fast forward seven years, and we’ve planted roots here in Austin. That three month old baby that we brought to this brand new city in 2012 is now a big first grader who reads books to me and wants to ride his bike to a friends house all by himself. We’ve added two more kiddos to our bunch too…a feisty 4 year old daughter and a hilarious 2 year old son, and I’m still happily staying home with my crew. Life is filled with school pick up lines, soccer practices, dance lessons, birthday parties, playroom forts, sidewalk chalk, and afternoon bike rides to our neighborhood park. I wouldn’t trade a minute for the world. We love our life here in NW Austin and it didn’t take long for us to fall in love with this city.
My list of favorites is a mile long, including fresh flowers, cooking new recipes, group fitness classes, vacations with friends, being outdoors and texting in gifs. You can also find me sewing up creative projects in my kitchen, podcasting episodes about the enneagram, or searching for a patio covered in twinkle lights to eat dinner with a group of friends. Oh, hilarious memes are my love language.
I love adventures and making small things into big things. Celebrations are what life is all about, so I truly live for holidays, birthdays, or really any notable milestone. I also have always loved writing…I started my first blog in 2005. At any given time, I’ve got a paragraph or two floating around in my head that I’m tweaking and re-wording. Writing is therapeutic for me and a signal of health and balance. I manage a blog that is all about empowering and celebrating the role of motherhood and building up the family unit. Follow along with my lovely little squares on instagram @kvas.chaos and on our blog www.kvaschaos.com. So while I love a lot of things, I am mostly passionate about relationships and I love sharing my life with the people around me. My faith in Jesus and my family are my everything.
A few more random, fun facts that may make you gasp in amazement or horror:
- I’ve never finished a book in its entirety. I get too excited about the next one on my list and I feel like if its not in the first ¾ of the book, it probably wasn’t that important, right?
- When we lived in NY, I phased out the word “y’all”. I felt like a traitor.
- I would love to flip homes someday.
- We don’t have Netfilx. I know…I hear your gasps…it’s like it’s 2002 over here.
- I’m currently mustering up the courage for my first tattoo.
- I have over 9,000 pictures on my phone right now (hides under pillow)
