We're four people in Palm Desert, and this is where we write it down. The wins, the weird weeks, the Tuesdays that somehow worked. It's become the little corner of the internet we actually look forward to opening.
Jess is sunny, driven, and the guaranteed life of every party — the kind of person who genuinely sees the best in people and means it. She loves the Jonas Brothers, Jesse McCartney, Beyoncé, and every Disney movie ever made. She'll claim she wants to pick what we watch and then never can. All four of us agree she's the one in charge.
Theo is insanely curious about almost everything — Kubrick, Korean cinema, typography, street art, The Great Gatsby (his favorite book), Parasite (his favorite movie). He shoots most of the photos, edits most of the videos, will sit on the floor and draw with the kids for hours, and is — by his own admission and on the record — an extremely proud wife guy.
Nia (say: knee-uh-bell) is, in her own estimation, an amazing singer and the smartest person in her class — and she's not exactly wrong. She lives at her own unhurried pace, leads a merry band of cousins and neighborhood kids, and recently soloed "Remember Me" from Coco at her school chorus show. Current obsessions: Frozen 2, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Handel's chocolate ice cream.
Noah is a freakin' hyperactive baby who wants to scoot everywhere at once, with a full head of hair and a laugh you can hear two rooms away. He loves pureed carrots and Theo humming anything; he firmly does not love pureed avocado, waiting for things, or going to bed. Known around the house as Papacito and Munchkin.
On any given Tuesday we are operating at the wildly different paces of a nine-year-old who wants to explain all of Encanto and a seven-month-old who wants to sleep through the second verse. We're also mixed race, and a blended family of four.
"Our Mixed Pace" is what we call the thing we're figuring out together — how to honor all of those speeds at once without losing any of the people in between.
Our Mixed Pace is about learning how to move through life together: baby pace, nine-year-old pace, parent pace, and whatever speed the day allows. We write about family life, product finds, travel, style, home, desert days, music, fashion, and all the fun we have along the way!
You can follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube at Our Mixed Pace. TikTok is where the faster, funnier, slightly more chaotic version of the family usually lands first.
We're Jess, Theo, Nia, and Noah: a family of four based in Palm Desert, California. Jess writes most of the blog, Theo shoots most of the photos and videos, Nia keeps the house honest and musical, and Noah mostly wants to move, laugh, chew on his fingers, and not wait for anything.
The name started with the fact that everyone in our family moves at a different speed. Nia can NOT be rushed, Noah hates waiting, and the adults are usually somewhere in the middle trying to remember where we put the coffee. It also nods to our blended family story and mixed-race household, but first and most often, it means learning how to honor all our different rhythms.
We're based in Palm Desert, California. The desert shows up in a lot of what we make: the light, the color, the slower mornings, the very real need for a good portable fan, and the kind of family photos that happen right before someone asks for ice cream.
We write about product reviews, recipes, family travel, style, home, desert life, music, and the ordinary family stuff we want to remember. Think honest recommendations, small rituals, strong opinions about baby gear, and the occasional sentence that took longer to write than the errand it describes.
Yes, but not only that. It is a parenting blog, a family journal, a product-review corner, a travel notebook, and a place for the things we keep telling each other we should write down. We're less interested in pretending we have a system and more interested in noticing what actually works for our family.
Yes. We share things we actually use, love, or have strong feelings about after trying them in real family life. You can find our current picks in Our Faves, plus longer thoughts on the blog. Some posts may include affiliate links or sponsored features, but we keep the recommendations honest and disclose those relationships clearly.
Yes, when the fit makes sense. We're open to collaborations around family life, baby and kid products, home, travel, style, food, desert living, and the kinds of useful things a family would genuinely reach for again. Brands can send us an email or use the contact form.
The easiest way is through the contact form on this page, or by sending an email to thessikaolesen@gmail.com. Send us collaboration ideas, questions, recommendations, or the thing you swear we need to try. We read everything and reply to most of it.
Collabs, questions, a rec we have to try — we read everything and reply to most of it.
