Meet Shaylee :: Interior Design To Homeschoolin Mom Of 4 On A Homestead

Hello Austin and the greater Austin area moms! My name is Shaylee Adrian Webb. I feel intimidated to try and describe myself but in the words of the great Fraulein Maria, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”

I grew up just north of Austin in what once was the little town of Cedar Park. Back then it was nothing but, well, cedar trees. We drove a two lane road to school and the Cedar Chopper Festival was the social event on everyone’s calendar.

I graduated from Cedar Park High School in 2003, kicked the cedar pollen off my heels and headed northwest for the thriving metropolis of Abilene, TX. There I pursued higher education at Abilene Christian University where I spent 4 of the most magical years of my life forming some of my most treasured friendships and life experiences.

I graduated with a degree in Interior Design and moved my naive self to Dallas to begin my life as a “real adult”. After a few years of office work, I was sitting in traffic on highway 75, in a car I could barely afford and had a jolting realization. I would never graduate from this. This was it. I could be here for the rest of my adult life, sitting in traffic hoping to make something of my life in between office time and weekends shopping at Forever  21. I turned in my two weeks not long after that, moved home, went back to school and met my husband.

My husband. Y’all. I didn’t see him coming but he hit me like a ton of handsome, manly and mysterious bricks.

We married in 2010, I completed my masters in elementary education and had the first of our four babies in 2011. I had our second in 2012, third in 2014 and finally our last baby in 2015. If I had a dollar for every time a person over the age of 50 sarcastically asked me, “you know how this keeps happening, right” I’d have like, $47.

But seriously, I learned very quickly to my dismay that many people place harsh judgements on mothers.

Most of my friends didn’t have any kids or were just starting to get pregnant and I was over here running my own nursery. I felt very happy but also very alone. With my husband’s gentle encouragement, I hesitantly started a little blog and wrote about a few experiences and to my delight I was not alone! People resonated with the struggles and the joys I was writing about! Sadly, that blog got hacked and I didn’t fix it because babies and survival.

In 2015 we moved our brood from south Austin to Dripping Springs where we built a farmhouse on 5 acres. We have big dreams for our place. I’m not going to lie, it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get it built and keep it running all while raising four babies. We wouldn’t trade it though.

Now we’re out of the baby stage (praise hands) and into the homeschool stage. I NEVER thought I’d be a homeschool mom but miracles do happen.

We have loved it so far. I also dabbled in writing again when I became a contributing writer for a small magazine two years ago. I had a fantastic time doing it. There’s just something so neat about seeing your writing in print. One of my assignments had me going to research rattle snakes *** real ones*** and that about sealed the deal for me. Just…no. Blog writing about the trenches of motherhood is more in my wheelhouse, thank you very much.

I keep busy schooling my brood, singing with my church worship band and preparing our garden for the spring. If all goes according to plan we won’t have to spend a small fortune on produce each week. That’s if I can get my 4 year old to pull weeds and not the actual food producing plants. Here’s hoping.

I’m thrilled to share these experiences again with Austin Moms! When a fellow mom hears a struggle or shares their heart and someone else raises their hand and says “me too girl” or “right there with ya” it’s nothing short of powerful. I’m honored to be a part of that community. Let’s get started!