What would the title of your memoir be? Ours would be something like…
I Didn’t Expect To Cry This Much
Of course, it needs a subtitle. Let’s see here…
The both/and pursuit of a joy-filled life, whole hearted life.
Because if you don’t know anything about us yet, what you really need to know is that we love Jesus, we care about the way we live out our days, and we might be the most laid back people you’ve ever met, all at once.
By the way, we’re Brooke and T.J Mousetis!
(Muh-See-Tis)
Founders of walk in love., Mom and Dad to June, Sunny and Daisy, aiming to give you the tools and language to live your very own joy-filled life — just like the one God promised us was possible.
And we embrace the above fact fully because we’ve learned (the hard way) that the life we really want to live is one full of…
Happy tears, ugly cries, laughing til it hurts your side, dancing in the living room, slow mornings into afternoons, dinner every Friday night, “Okay I love you, Bye”.
… that level of joy won’t be found in the middle where everyone else seems to live.
It takes willingness to choose the God-breathed words that will guide your life and to allow them to the heartbeat of your daily rhythms.
(Credit to those ever-poetic words a few paragraphs ago goes to Jessie Early who wrote a song about our family!)
Listen to The Best Day With You here!
It all started with not-so-cheesy t-shirts.
Walk in love. began in 2005 when TJ wanted to go on a mission trip to Russia with his dad. He decided to sell 100 royal blue t-shirts printed with the phrase “walk in love.” He heard the simple words in a Bible study, felt a spark, and wrote ‘em down.
You could say “the rest is history,” but the rest of the story is where it gets really good.
A few years and more trips to Russia to teach kids about Jesus, and it was 2008. T.J. wanted to do more with his fundraiser t-shirts, if nothing else to combat the EVER-PRESENT, super-cheesy Christian t-shirts that ran the market.
So, what does every good business need? A website. And a website needed photos.
Insert the meet-cute: At the time, Brooke was just starting out as a photographer, so TJ reached out on Facebook to see if she’d trade photos for free t-shirts.
We were married a year later.
Together, we began to build Walk in love. as it currently stands. A lot’s happened since then, so let’s take a storybook approach to this thing with some significant headlines.
T.J. began the first iteration of walk in love. with royal blue t-shirts that would go down in history. (Kidding, not kidding.)
2005
T.J. internet stalked (ahem, messaged) Brooke about a photo-for-t-shirt trade. She said, “sure.” Love ensued.
2008
Brooke and T.J. got married! Worked side-by-side to grow walk in love. Grew and scaled a wedding photography business. Opened two brick and mortar walk in love. retail stores.
2009
|
2012
Moved walk in love. soley online and closed the doors to the brick and mortar stores.
2013
Got pregnant with our 1st girl, June. Decided to stop shooting weddings and give walk in love. our full time effort.
2014
We grew like crazy, had a team of employees, a warehouse, and helped to renovate an 18,000sq ft co working space to become the home of walk in love.
2015
|
2017
Our 2nd girl, Sunny, came onto the scene. We had our hardest year ever (unrelated to sweet Sunny) and decided to follow the God-nudge we felt to close walk in love as we knew it… indefinitely. (Insert all that crying we talked about earlier.)
2018
Insert Plot Twist!
Insert Plot Twist!
In 2018, we felt called to lay our successful business down.
What we were doing wasn’t working for our business and especially for the way we wanted to cultivate our family life.
So, even though we had no clue what was on the other side of laying down the business we’d worked for 10 years to grow, we were prayerfully faithful in that present moment with what God was leading us to do.
We turned to Jesus during our hardest year ever, looking for an answer or some direction — He seemed to clearly say: RHYTHMS.
We needed a slower pace of life, but we couldn’t shake the feeling that we wanted to squeeze abundance and fulfillment out of life. But there had to be a way to do that with rest in the picture instead of only hustle.
We laid down walk in love. knowing we could only pick it back up if we were willing to live differently, no matter what it took.
So we did.
Our New Non-Negotiables:
Family Values + Focus
Prioritize a 7-Day Rhythm
Practice Sabbath Weekly
Cultivate a Joy-Filled Life
This helped us make “joy-filled life” number one on our priority list.
And we saw the fruit… FAST.
We became more rested and patient.
We had clarity and new ideas again.
We could see the big picture while fully living in the present.
We became more intentional parents and entrepreneurs.
We didn’t take our jobs lightly, but we also didn’t hold them too tightly.
We also asked ourselves the question: “If better didn’t have to mean bigger or faster, what would that look like for walk in love.?”
By June of 2019, after much prayer, talking with friends, and a very influential mastermind group, we decided to bring the t-shirts back with one caveat….
Our new business model had to allow for our new life rhythms.
Instead of being open 24/7 with a warehouse full of inventory, we switched to a pre-order, limited edition, open only a handful of times per year business model.
We set a sales goal that we HAD to hit by the end of June 2019. (Or else T.J. was gonna go buy some button-up shirts and “get a real job.”)
We re-opened the walk in love. shop on June 17th, 2019 and hit said sales goal in 12 hours.
And then we cried ugly tears on the internet all over again.
(Remember the title of our memoir!? Yep.)
So, that’s pretty much how we run our shop to this day.
We’ve learned to embrace the seasons of intensity and seasons of rest, all with our number one priority at the forefront - to pursue a joy-filled, whole hearted life together as a family.
We reopened the shop and started doing things a different way - in family life and work.
2019
Launched the walk in love. podcast to share more of what choosing the not-so-common way of living truly looks like.
2020
Moved from Pennsylvania to Maui — UH WHAT! — while Brooke was pregnant with our 3rd daughter, Daisy.
2021
Launched our online courses to help teach and train young families how to live more rhythmically, joyfully and whole heartedly for Jesus.
2023
Who knew t-shirts could do all that?
God did.
Walking with Jesus means nothing’s ever too small for big change.
We know keeping the words you want to live in front of your face and in your daily rhythm can change the way you live them out. We’ve lived it with every single t-shirt collection we’ve put out into the world. We’ve seen it with countless customers who have told us just how powerful it is to wear walk in love.
What we didn’t quite anticipate was that a t-shirt company would become a catalyst for a way of life other people would want to know about — in both faith and practicality.
And that’s where our story lands us now. Our focus is on continuing to grow the business that’s skyrocketed past our wildest dreams. But we also can’t wait to help other young families make their own decisions in light of what they really want out of life instead of falling prey to hustling their way to a life they would have already been living if they just slowed down a little and soaked it in.
CHECK OUT THE NUMBERS
211
family sabbaths since we started the practice
349
“Okay, I love you, byes” said to people we love
327,052
walk in love. shirts out there in the world
16
countries wearing walk in love.
955,387
walk in love podcast downloads
Since you know our business life story…
Wanna know more about us?
One thing we love about doing so much life with our community on the internet is that moment when we meet in person and they say, “Oh my word, yes! You’re exactly the same.”
And that’s our sincere hope. That when we take our jokes and references extremely too far on the podcast or say something that makes you tear up as we tear up, that it’ll feel a lot like sitting down to our dinner table on a Friday night with queso and spicy waters (a.k.a. what our girls call sparkling water!).
When you get the real us we hope it gives you permission to live in the real you territory — because you’re not alone. Everyone wants more joy and everyone struggles to get it. We’re walking in love the best way we know how, right alongside you.
Meet Brooke
Catchphrase: “Oh, 1000%.”
Brooke likes things to be peaceful and as close to perfect as possible (but struggles even now to admit that in her bio.) Can anyone relate?! Okay, maybe not PERFECT, but she can make just about anything a little bit better — it’s her superpower. In the past few years she’s been diving head first into learning things like how to homeschool her girls and what it looks like to clean up the products in her home and personal care. She also really loves to go shelling now that she’s become an official Hawaii person, because being alongside the ocean and finding little treasures brings her more joy and fulfillment than she ever thought possible.
On Sabbath, you can find her at the beach, taking a nap, or making yet another pot of roasted corn queso and a big batch of Rice Krispies treats.
Meet T.J.
Catchphrase: “Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.”
TJ is joyful and enthusiastic pretty much all the time, but he isn’t afraid to tell it exactly like it is when the situation arises. In recent years, he’s become really passionate about prioritizing multi-generational family living and a focus on building his family with strong values. He probably has an idea for the thing you’re stuck on right now (really), and he’s a sweetly-devoted girl Dad.
He’s also really funny (Brooke can confirm) and very committed to inside jokes and show references.
On Sabbath, you can find him at the beach, playing video games, napping or playing pickle ball with friends.
Rhythms changed our business, but they revived our family.
We no longer take family lightly, but we don’t hold it tightly.
Sensing a theme, here? The “don’t take it lightly, but don’t hold it tightly” concept is a phrase we heard from a trusted leader and it instantly became one of our family mottos.
In a world filled with… everything… family is often the thing that falls between the cracks. But when you think about it, this whole parenting thing is serious: we get to train up small humans to be actual 50-year-olds one day. They’ll be friends, maybe spouses, or parents themselves. And WE are Ground Zero for helping to instill values, practices, and the rhythms of a life well-lived and filled with joy inside those little, malleable brains.
So we take it seriously. It’s always top of mind for us.
But we also do it in a way that’s seriously fun. And that’s what we hope you’ll take away from the bits of our family we share with you.
We are teaching our kiddo's that they’re not the center of the world, but they are a part of our family.
And that is FUN, fulfilling, fruitful, and worth fighting to keep.
Want to find out what that looks like for us?
We’ve got tons of ways you can do it, but if you want to keep up with it all straight inside your inbox, you can join our email community below.
Our Ultimate Hope is in Jesus
And our hope for this space is to provide you with the tools, resources, and language to help you life a more joy-filled, whole hearted life as you walk out your days covered in His love.
“Okay, I love you, bye!”
-Brooke + T.J.