Maya Road and Me

I have been creating some lovelies lately - here is a simple mom's card:

this little rose was one of the most fun things to make:

so simple too with just a snip of the scissors!

and here is one of the reasons i have been a bad blogger lately:

 

we are having a mini june maya road release. there are a couple of neat things - this star pin being one of them. i can already image a world of possibilities with this pin - great for 4th of july and also for Christmas and Holidays!

but i have also been busy with these:

 

we have been biking, running, visiting the pool, doing math, learning to roll and more.

we have lots of fun things going on at our house - we work hard and play hard and we have a good time doing both.

we will be back soon to show you the artwork going on at our house!

4 years ago...

my world changed.

i was about to become a mom for the first time and there was no turning back.

i was nervous but ready - the last couple of weeks in may were hard ones for me with the heat and the culmination of 9 months of being pregnant.

here i was awaiting the arrival of our little boy (who didn't have a name yet)

i can't say childbirth was a run in the park:

but in the end the most beautiful gift of all arrived:

a loud beautiful little boy - i could not imagine a little person so perfect.

it took us a couple of days to decide but we finally settled on the name noah - which means wanderer (which he is), rest (which he doesn't) and quiet (um yeah not my noah). this was the perfect name for a perfect little boy.

and so our journey as parents began and we are now rewarded with a wonderful little boy who is 4. it has been 4 wonderful years of teaching and learning from you.

happy birthday to my sweet baby boy.

4 years ago.

In a few short days, my big boy Noah will be 4 years old. People weren't lying when they said time really flies when you have kiddos. My Noah has grown up to be a responsible and loving child that we absolutely adore. Here he is at about 4 weeks old posing with some MR products for us:

My I adore this photo. I think it has been 3.5 years since I have been able to have Noah be this still for me. He is a bundle of high energy and go go go 24-7 unless he is asleep.

Noah was asking me the other day how he ended up in my tummy and he proceeded to tell me that "God put me in the hospital and then I was put in the mail and mailed into your tummy". I smiled at his sweet answer. But life when you are almost 4 isn't always sweet - there are times when he thinks he can do it all himself and the mention of the word "baby" tears him into a frenzy as he hates being called that. But his sweet nature abounds - he totally adores his sister (and some times she thinks it is a bit much) and looks out for her. He always says "I want to be with Olivia" and is a bit of a little mama to her. It is very sweet.

And being 4 Noah has some opinions on what he wants to do for his birthday. We will do some celebration at home in a couple of weeks when things calm down but for the next 2 nights I will be preparing some things for him to take to school for a celebration with his classmates. He did request some "Cars" theme so I am working on some things for him. We will all go to take photos of him enjoying the lunch, cupcakes and goodies with his school friends.

4 years have flown by and before I know it Noah will be off on his life adventure, but for now we are hold fast to enjoying our days with Noah and Olivia. And we are capturing photos like this one so we can look back and smile.

Normal

It has been a week since we have gotten home and after traveling all those time zones, we are back to a regular schedule here at our house. The kids are sleeping in their beds and we all aren't waking up at 3 in the morning trying to figure out where we are and what we are doing. There is just something about being back home and in the routine of day to day. I am enjoying cooking and eating the foods we love (with bacon and cauliflower over pesto pasta on the top of the list). We have also added a couple new recipes to our thumbs up family list (like fish tacos and flank steak with chimichurri sauce).

We are also gearing up for our early June Maya Road release! We have put together a small little release to celebrate the start of summer. We have a lot of MR goodness coming out CHA-S and we are loving everything we have. I have spent one evening just testing out some of our early June release products - you will see one from us we haven't done before. Here is a tiny smidge of something you might see in early June - any guesses as to what it is?

There is a ton going on this week - on the top of the list is the celebration of a little boy's 4th birthday. He has some special requests I am trying to meet so I need to get on it now so that it is ready in time. I have thought about going elaborate for his cake and such but this year, he only had 1 request - a CARS themed party which we can have at his school so I am keeping it simple. He would be thrilled with anything CARS related - I am sure of that. I will save the creativity for another day when I need to use it!

how can one resist this face?

challenging myself

over the weekend, as part of my mother's day present, i spent the day down at one of my LSS (the crafty scrapper) taking a soldering class on saturday. some of my friends probably thought i was insane (and feeling the effects of jet lag, i probably was. i was up since 3 am the morning of the class ). the classes were awesome. i came away with over 7 pieces of awesome jewelry which i can share with those i love. included in these are some i made with my kiddos' photos:

 

there is a lot of chemistry sprinkled with a bit of engineering in soldering which i think appeals to the geek-ier side of me. i have been reading a lot today about flux and different soldering alloys and it brings back happy memories from my college engineering courses! this is definitely another hobby i would pick up on in a heart beat.

at the same time, stretching my creative limits by trying a different hobby makes me a better business person for maya road. i did get to use a MR dangling chandelier bead on one of the charms. but trying a different hobby allows me to think about maya road in a different way. and while we don't plan on going into soldering, the ideas i got from trying something different made the class worthwhile. i can definitely see incorporating some more maya road in my next charm designs as well as thinking about what would inspire me to do future maya road designs.

so again, thanks to my hubby for watching my kiddos almost all saturday and also to tricia the teacher who was patient with all of us in our first foray into this cool hobby. i am addicted and i can't wait to get back into it!

What A Journey

It is 5 am and I am awake here in my own house in Texas. Even though I am suffering from jet lag, I am really glad to be home! Over the last 60+ days I think I have traveled close to 40,000 miles and at a lot of time zones. The travel isn't so bad but it becomes more tricky once you factor in your family - traveling away from them is tough but traveling with them is tougher. I don't know how road warriors do it!!

I can tell you that 14 hours in coach with 2 kiddos can be an um challenge but we make the most of it. I do have much stronger arm muscles now after carrying Olivia during our last trip. We just finished up in Asia check out our CHA-S production and spending some time with our family at the same time. It isn't easy as there are days Deb and I have to kiss our kiddos and hubbies goodbye and head off to meetings for 6-8 hours. But we get it done and in the evenings we get to see our kiddos and families so that make it worthwhile.

And our CHA-S products - wow wow wow. I can't disclose right now all the goodies galore coming but there is a lot and it is all good. Some new things Deb and I have been working on since CHA-W and I can't wait for their release at CHA-S. There is a lot of work between now and the summer show to keep me busy!

It is time for me to put my nose to the grindstone and get to work! I will leave you with one of my favorite summer albums.