Not what I expected...

So just over a year ago my little girl was born. When I brought her home I thought that I had this perfect family (everyone always said I had the million dollar family) and everything was going to be great! It was amazing, she was a great baby and my son loved being a big brother, all of my worries were nothing to worry about now. I had such an easy time, nothing like when I had my son. I think because of how great everything was I had a hard time admitting that something was just not right. It took a long time before I finally mentioned anything to anyone. I was at my doctors office for one of Ella's well baby visits when he asked how I was. I guess my answer must have worried him because he sent in the nurse who started talking about PPD (postpartum depression) and all of the avenues I can take.

Why am I sharing this? I ask myself that question as I type... but I think the main reason is a huge portion of my customers are new parents and I want to let them know what I went through and that there is nothing to be ashamed of if they might be feeling the same way I did.

I started receiving the many support options that my city offered and it was the best thing I could have done. When I first started I was not happy... I was actually down right angry all the time, I was having a really hard time with these two kids, I didn't want to leave my house, I was scared to go out with them, that I was scared of them. But I think the thing that ate away at me the most was that I had become the mother I didn't want to be... or at least I thought I had. I could only remember the bad things from each day, I remembered my son acting up, my daughter not sleeping, how all I did was yell, how I was doing it all on my own, how no one helped, how I never got any sleep, how horrible I felt about myself and never wanted to look in the mirror.

I learned that I was not alone, that so many other moms felt the same way as me. That everything I was experiencing was normal, that PPD was something, something that you should not just ignore or be embarrased about. That I was not a bad mother and I didn't act the way I felt like I did. That I was not ruining my wonderful 3 year old little boy. I learned so much about myself that I could not have learned on my own. I know that I have to take care of myself before I can take care of anyone else.

Things are not perfect now, but they sure are better than they were 6 months ago. They will continue to get better too, I am enjoying my kids and being a mom. I have things to look forward to, I ask for help when I need it and I take time for myself. Sure there are still things that could be better, but when is life ever perfect? Okay I think I have two days when I can say it was, the birth of my son and the birth of my daughter!

I hope that if when reading this some of it rings true that me sharing this might help you to take the next step, that you will talk to someone. A little more information:

ONE IN FIVE MOTHERS WILL HAVE A POSTPARTUM MOOD DISORDER
IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT

Having a baby can be a wonderful experience, but life with a new baby is not always what you expect. PPD or Baby Blues are experienced by about 80% of new mothers. You may feel sad, have crying spells, feel irritable, exhausted, overwhelmed, or have changes in your sleep/eating patterns.

With help from family and friends, a little self care, and support from your health care provider, most women will get through this challenging time of adjustment.

Sometimes the blues do not go away. PPD includes a variety of mental health difficulties that can affect women during pregnancy, after a miscarriage or stillbirth and, or in the first year of having a new baby.

If you have a PPD, you may experience the same feelings as those of the blues, as well as:
• feelings of hopelessness and frustration
• anxiety
• restlessness
• anger
• guilt or shame
• thoughts of harming yourself or your baby
• hear or see things that are not there
• you may think that you are not a ‘good’ mother

If you have had any of these symptoms for more than two weeks, don’t wait, there is help for you and your family.

Very rarely a mother will experience a Postpartum Psychosis. You may:
• have thoughts of harming yourself or your baby
• hear or see things that are not there
• believe that people or things are going to harm you or your baby
• feel confused or out of touch with reality

If you have any of these thoughts or feelings, don’t wait, get help right away.

Happy New Year!!

So it is 2008 and I have so many things that I want to do. I sit here late at night, because it seems to be the only time I have to myself! My kids keep me very busy and Ella is almost a year and really keeping me on my toes. It is so hard to imagine that it has been almost a year since I had her, but when I look at my son who is 3.5 years I really realize how quickly time does go. One of the main reasons why I try to make my family my number one priority... I don't want to look back and wish that I spent more time with them and less time being the big business mom. With all this time talk I decided that I am not going to put New Years Resolutions on myself, I don't want to feel bad when I don't do them. I have many things business wise and personally that I want to do, and I hope to do them, but I am not going to be hard on myself if I didn't do it because I was having fun playing with my kids!

Do you know one thing that I love about my business? It is that most of my customers are just like me. I can sit down and have a conversation with any of them and at some point we will both agree on something major about our lives. I also love working with babies, kids and families. I love seeing a baby that I created a birth announcement grow up. I am so lucky to have so many wonderful returning customers that I get the chance to see these babies grow up and turn a year, two years and so on! I promise that this month there will be a program put in place to reward them.

So I really should get to sleep now, I have been dealing with my wonderful baby girl who doesn't like to sleep and after 4 years of horrible sleep I am beyond tired, I am exhausted. Most days I am lucky that I can actually function! It has made me start to try that good old sleep training with her, I am such a wimp that I make it so gentle on them (I did it with my son) so I know it will take a while but it will be so worth it in the end. I can't have a 16 year old still sleeping in my bed every night... can I?!

It's been a long time...

Okay I know I promised to keep up to date on my blog but it has been a crazy couple of months. I have been dealing with a lot of personal stuff (maybe one day I might share more as it is very normal for new moms) and really trying to focus on my 2 kids. This takes all my free time to work on only designing and doesn't leave a lot left to do anything else - note my website that desperately needs a slight update! I know that many of you can understand how hard it is to balance everything we deal with as moms. After becoming a mom just over 3 years ago I have had a hard time dealing with not being able to do everything. Owning my own business certainly doesn't make it any easier, but I love running Grace Announcements. I am just still working on finding my new groove with my 2 kids, my husband, my home and my customers. I know that the most important thing in my life is my 2 kids, Kal and Ella are the most important thing to me and I don't want to wake up one day and realize I missed them grow up. I became a mompreneur to be home with them and have to remind myself that I am not going to let a day go by where I don't spend quality time with each of them. I am so lucky to have such a supporting family that helps out so much with the business that I am able to do close to it all. I know that I might not be able to ever "do it all" but I can certainly do my best!

Business has been great, we are full swing into the holiday season and I am just focusing on getting my great designs out to my customers. I am looking forward to spending the holidays with my family. So please bare with me over the next month as I will continue to be super busy producing great new designs for the holiday season. Hopefully I will find a moment to share some of them here, but know that if you haven't heard from me that it means I might be having fun playing construction site with my son!

The start of school...

So my son started preschool last week (above is a picture from the drive that first morning), it has been a long time coming and not really what I expected! I hoped that the 3 hours a day he was gone would be a great time to work but I still have my daughter at home. She still keeps me busy and really misses having him around. When we pick him up at lunch she is happy to see him, all smiles like she always is! The other big problem is he has decided that he no longer naps, so I don't have that quiet time in the afternoon anymore. I can honestly say that I am looking forward to when my daughter is a little older and I can have some "me time" it really has been a long time coming. I know that I devote my day to them and work around them. For the most part that works, life is a constant struggle and always changing. I just keep rolling with the punches!!

What's Up?!

Okay so as always I am insanely busy! Between my family (which always comes first) and Grace Announcements I have little free time. Luckily I get to spend a lot of time enjoying the summer outside since that is where my son wants to be all the time. Sometimes we come inside at 10pm after being outside all day. He just loves it so much and I know how short our summers are and how quickly we will be hibernating inside for the winter.

So I am working on some new designs for the 2007 Holiday Season, and very excited about them. I have some great inspiration and really look forward to sharing them soon, please check back often as I hope to get them online by September 1st. But don't hold me to that! August is a very busy month for me. My first born is about to turn 3. He starts preschool in September and we are both very excited about that! My baby girl was 6 months old yesterday, she is getting ready to keep me on my toes - she is starting to move. WOW where has the time gone?!!

An amazing photo shoot!

I do a lot of design work for an amazing photographer, Jen van der Vecht who also took some photos of my family and I just have to share these because I am so happy with how they turned out! I remember the day I picked them up. As I looked over the proofs I gasped at how beautiful they were (my husband kept telling me to stop because he was driving and it kept freaking him out!) she really captured my babies. I am not sure with you but I find that sometimes I take pictures of my kids, especially my baby girl and I find they don't really look like her, they don't seem to capture the real her. They were taken outside at her studio in King City, the area is so beautiful and really works well. My son had fun getting comfortable which was great because he wanted nothing to do with all the fuss at first... typical toddler! So we started with my girl and I, we got some great photos. I am actually happy with how I looked in them, I hate having photos of myself taken! So I wanted to share some with you, this is only a small sample of some of my favorites, but I figured that you would not want to look through around 30 photos!!! So if you like them be sure to contact Jen. You can visit her website for more information, oh and if you do contact her be sure to tell her I sent you!

My days need to be longer!

Okay so whenever I think to myself that I might actually get a chance to get to my long "to-do list" 100 other things always come up... isn't it always that way? I really think that if I just missed sleeping I would be much better off time wise, but I am not sure how many days I could go like that. Gosh my beautiful little baby girl does a good job keeping me up at night and after a couple bad nights I am ready to spend a week in bed sleeping!! I am one of those people that needs 8 hours of sleep a night. So here I sit sleep deprived and trying to type something that makes sense! I think the one good thing is that almost everyone who reads this understands.

I have been contacted many times over the last year about dealer/wholesale inquiries so I have finally started to put together an official package for people interested in offering Grace Announcements Designs. I am excited about that and how my business has been shaped over the last year. My wonderful customers are to thank for that! They are what hold me here. The crazy temper tantrums, the teething baby, sleepless nights and piles of laundry sometimes make me wonder if I need to take a step back from my crazy life... but I never could... I love what I do way to much to ever stop creating amazing memories for my wonderful customers! And they always seem to send me that wonderful heartfelt thank you emails on those really hard days.... it is like they know!!