We are one of those families that send out holiday cards every single year, for almost 15 years now! 99% of the time, I’m running to the post office just a few days before Christmas to make sure I get my cards in the mail.

But not this year!

It’s a holiday miracle folks!

I got these cards out the day after Thanksgiving and you know what, the lack of stress feels UH-MAZING! I even had time to order actual holiday stamps. Since usually I’m so late to the game, I have to use just regular American Flag stamps most of the time. I feel so accomplished and I thought I’d brag and share about it here.

I’ve been a pretty dedicated and loyal fan of Minted for a few years now. I love that they will print the addresses onto my holiday cards for me. It’s a game changer. We send over 100 cards every year and finding the time to address all of those can be hard and very tedious. I love that I can just upload my spread sheet to Minted and they take care of it for me. So happy not to have hand cramps!

I enjoy all holiday cards, but I can’t help but get giddy for the picture ones. I really like to see families grow and age over the years. Sometimes they are photos from people’s travels that year, baby announcements, or just the pooches even. So I like to keep my cards fairly simple since I feel like most people just wanna see the picture.

And when you have gorgeous family pictures like the ones we have from the sweet and talented Joy Theory Co Photography, who wouldn’t want to see this gorgeous family portrait!

Sometimes, I can be so extra that I end up hating myself later. This year, I was so ahead of the game, that I really enjoyed all the extra details I did with our cards. We laser engraved and cut these little buttons that I used bakers twine to wrap around the card. Since everyone who has gotten our Christmas card has loved them so much, I decided to list them in our store here.

I also got a steal on the bumblebee wax stamp during Amazon Prime days during the summer. Our last name means “bumblebee” in Spanish so it’s become something like our family logo or crest. The wax seal was a bit less relaxing to do at first. There is definitely a learning curve to using wax seals. However, once I figured it out, it was sort of therapeutic.

Overall, I’m so happy I took the time and energy to order these cards earlier this year and avoided my normal stress with sending them out. I love receiving holiday cards, they always put a huge smile on my face. I hope those who received a card from us, got a smile from our card this year too.

Do you send out holiday cards every year? Do you have a tradition with them?

If you still need to order your holiday cards, feel free to use my link to save $25 off your purchase of $100 or more.

Cards: Minted

Photos: Joy Theory Co.

My Outfit: Morning Lavender

Wooden Buttons: Delovely Details

Bee Wax Seal: Amazon

Gold Wax: Amazon

Now that I’ve been a mother to two humans, you think I would be a bit wiser about raising children…right?

Nope. Not at all! There are two things I know I have learned from being a mum to two girls, that I still know nothing about raising kids and to always just pack the extra snacks.

When we first had Evelyn, we really wanted to remain minimalist with the baby gear. I was incredibly thoughtful and did our due diligence in research for what we thought we needed, what would be worth having for convenience, and what things we could get by without.

Looking back, I think we did a great job. I didn’t really have any products that I didn’t feel like we got our full use out of except for one product (just buy the cheap Ikea high chair!).

When I was pregnant with Hazel, and we found out it was another girl, I was so hopeful that we wouldn’t need to buy any more baby gear and we would still love our old baby products as much as we did the first time around.

We did well with our goal and I’m here to share with you my top 5 favorite products I used for BOTH my girls.

1. Mom’s on Call - All moms will tell you the “sleep guru” or “sleep method” they use and swear by. Sometimes that’s not even a method at all. Hey, whatever works for you and yours! For us, the answer was Mom’s on Call. I can’t recommend it enough. Both my girls are the best sleepers, but more importantly, I’m so confident in knowing what their needs are because of this book series.

2. Hatch Baby Rest Sound Machine - We got Hazel her own as soon as we knew she was coming because this has been such an amazing product for our family. Not only is the functionality amazing, but their customer service is out of this world. Between Evelyn’s Hatch and the new one Hazel’s got, there have been some awesome upgrades.

3. Swaddleme Swaddles and Sleep pods - Since we were very hopeful to give Evelyn a sibling, I kept all of her clothes including her swaddles, sleep sacks, etc. Thank goodness because they all came in use and Hazel slept amazing with them. I was so worried that what worked for Evelyn, wouldn’t work for Hazel and I would be out shopping for all new sleeping solutions with a toddler and a newborn during a pandemic but these worked great for both our girls! (I could easily write a whole blog post about how much I hate buying sleepsacks.)

4. Dr. Brown’s Formula Pitcher - We didn’t buy this for Evelyn until we were about 3 months in with making bottles every 3 hours, spilling formula all over the counters around the clock and wasting so much formula. This revolutionized the way we conducted our days and we started it on day one with Hazel. If you are a formula family, this is a game changer!

5. Halo Bassinet - I was actually given a Halo bassinet from my bestie who didn’t love it. We were so lucky because we (Evelyn and myself) loved it! But I was very worried that maybe Hazel wasn’t gonna sleep as well in it. However, it worked great! Maybe too great because I ended up having to wake Hazel up for her feedings those first couple months!

I definitely don’t have the answers to how to be the perfect mum to two kids, I don’t really have a clue if what I am doing is right, and most days I’m overwhelmed with guilt about the possibility of one of my children not getting all their needs or wants completely fulfilled. However, I do find these small wins helpful. I made a few good choices and they have continued to pay off. Woot!

This post contains some affiliated links, however I wouldn’t recommend anything I don’t already love!

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. We aren’t generally big “Valentine’s Day” people, but this is the first time Evelyn will get to pass out Valentines to her friends. Obviously things are a bit different due to the pandemic, we had to drop her valentines off two weeks early so they could sit in the class before she can pass them out. I am not complaining, we are just so grateful she even has this opportunity.

However, that two week early period really crept up on me! I’m not a “store bought” kind of gal, so I had to think quick to pull something together.

Evelyn had received sunglasses from a friend last year for Valentine’s Day and so it was her wish to give out sunglasses this year to her friends. I ordered these off Oriental Trading Co. and then designed a post card that we could print at home. I also found these cute sunglasses from Amazon that ship out quickly and they are about $1 each. You can’t go wrong! Then we attached the sunglasses with some washi tape and Evelyn “wrote” her friend’s name and her name on the bottom.

This is Evelyn’s first year in school so this is the first time she’ll do an exchange like this. She was so excited to take these to class, but wasn’t really understanding that she would have to wait to pass them out for two weeks. She’s just anxious to share with her friends.

This week in her class, they are learning about kindness and friendship. So it just seems fitting that I make this printable available to any one who wants it! Just sign up below (full disclosure, you’ll also be added to my newsletter list but who doesn’t want to get updates on new products and sales?!) and I’ll email you this downloadable printable for your own use! I recommend on printing on thick cardstock, there are two per page. Let me know what you think!

Make sure you tag us in your pictures if you use our printable so we can share them!