Meet Kelli Hays of Eat, Pray, {Read} Love! Houston Mom, Pastor's Wife, Encourager

At BigKidSmallCity, we believe the more we know about the people of Houston, the smaller our city feels. And who better to meet than a Houston Mom with a heart to inspire women in the many areas of life that we manage?!

Meet Kelli Hays of Eat, Pray, {Read} Love.com! In her own words, she tells us about her family, her website and what she loves about Houston!

Hi, I'm Kelli! I grew up in the tiny town of Henderson, TX. My husband, who grew up in the Beaumont area, ended up working at our church when I was in college and after a time of friendship, a short dating period, and even shorter engagement, we got married when I was 21. We just celebrated our 13 year anniversary in December.

I knew from the time I was a young girl that I wanted lots of kiddos. We had our first baby when I was 25- and he was born very, very sick. Still living in Henderson, we ended up at Texas Children's Hospital when he was 17 days old and spent much of his first year either in-patient at TCH or at clinic visits. (You can read more of that story here.)

About a year after he was born, and he was doing much better, my husband asked what I thought about moving to Houston to start a church in the medical center area. I said "Yes" and the rest is history!

We moved here in 2008 with our then-two children, and now we have four: Landon, Allison, Evaleigh and Canaan. My husband is the pastor at The Church in the Center and I spend my days caring for my children, loving on the women of our church, and of course, blogging.

I began a small family blog way back in 2008, right after we moved to Houston. I did that for about 3 years, then realized I could turn the blog into extra income for our family. It took a while, but I finally landed on the blog name Eat, Pray, {Read} Love.

My heart is to inspire women in the many areas of life that we manage. The title encompasses the four main topics I cover: "Eat", of course, covers food (like this recipe for Spicy Asian Lettuce Wraps); "Pray" is when I talk about issues related to my faith, "Read" is reviews of good books for adults and children alike, and "Love" covers relationships from marriage to family to friendships as adults.

I have really enjoyed blogging for so many aspects- meeting new people in my city has been incredible! I'd love for you to come by the blog and say hi!

In Houston, we LOVE the diversity of people! Just on our street, we have Greek, Serbian, Nigerian, Vietnamese-American and Chinese-American neighbors. Learning about different cultures from them has been wonderful! Secondly- which is tied to #1- is the vast variety of food available. I am a complete foodie (as you can probably tell from my blog title) and getting to experience flavors from literally all over the world has been amazing!

There are so many fun things to do in Houston for kids, but Miller Outdoor Theater is definitely at the top of the list. It's free, it's outdoors, and the entertainment is always top-notch. We love taking a picnic and enjoying the fun shows several times each season.

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is so much fun! We always do the Value Wednesdays, where $10 a person gets us into the rodeo, livestock grounds, plus a fun concert. It's about the same price as a movie and much more fun, in our opinion!