It seems that every year, more and more people are doing away with their traditional New Year resolutions and focusing more on maybe just a word of the year.

I’ve set my fair share of resolutions in the past and I completely agree with the notion that they can be overwhelming and easily discarded after a few weeks of pressure.

So, I’ve decided to try a word of the year for 2022. Trying to decide which word I would focus on this year was much harder than previously considered.

Exactly what was I hoping to accomplish this year? The list seemed endless. My goals ranged from big to small, vital to trivial. I had business aspirations and personal standards I wanted to meet. I want to grow my business this year but I also want to find more time for myself.

I could go on and on, and basically it turns out…I just want to have it all. Let’s be real. That’s what we all want right?

Back to the drawing board,

Rather than focusing on all that I want, I started to think about why I haven’t met my previous goals. Of course there are a bajillion reasons that are completely out of my control as to why I don’t “have it all”. I don’t think it’s a standard we are actually allowed as women to have yet. However, I’m realistic and I do think some of this is very much in my control.

As a creative, and often times a perfectionist, I think one of my biggest struggles is staying focused. I am one of those typical people in this industry with 20 tabs constantly open. I’m sending work emails while simultaneously looking for a Ghost Spider sweater for my kid. While I’m at Disneyland with my family, I’m planning out my weekly meal plan. While picking up my daughter from school and asking her about her day, I’m also trying to get a post or an instastory up. Honestly, it’s no wonder I’m missing the mark so many times.

The pressure to “have it all” is so strong, that we are all self sabotaging our actual ability to “be happy with what we have”.

This year, my word is going to be “focus”. Focus on what I am doing and just focus on that. If I’m picking up Evelyn from school, focus on having that moment with her. If I’m at work and writing or designing, focus on that design work. Will things fall through the cracks? It’s possible, more like probable. However, I do wonder if what doesn’t fall through those cracks, perhaps, will reach new heights I’ve previously not met. Maybe my mind won’t be as exhausted. Maybe I’ll feel more accomplished at the end of the day.

Who really knows how this could turn out, I certainly don’t. But hey…it’s just one year right?

Do you have a word of the year? Or are you more of a resolution type of person?

Here’s to focusing in 2022!!!

I really can’t believe that Valentine’s Day is already around the corner. The years are just flying by here. With kids, these little holidays aren’t so little anymore. Drew and I were never big Valentine’s Day people however, now that Evelyn learns about the holiday and does crafts and stuff for it at school, she really enjoys celebrating it.

This year I got ahead of the game, and designed some Valentine’s Day cards that Evelyn could sign and take to school pretty early. She got one of these mini palettes at a birthday party and she loved it. Kept her busy for hours. I try my best to stay away from candy for these classroom giveaways, having been a teacher once before. When I found out that I could grab a 24 pack of these palettes for $15 on amazon, I knew this was the route we were going to take.

I designed this printable, two valentines to a page, and I just used photo paper to print on. I try to keep the ink usage to a minimum. I’m super excited with how they turned out! What do you think?

This is Evelyn’s second year in school and so she knows exactly how this is all going to go down. She’s super pumped about it and won’t stop asking when she will get to pass them to her friends.

Like last year, I’ve decided to share this printable if anyone else wants to use it. Don’t forget to snag these awesome watercolor palettes to tape to them to. I just used double sided sticky tape to attach the paint and cute washi tape for the paint brush. 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 or thick photo paper, 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!

I am one of those people who fall into the typical, cliché category of all things “new year”. I do reviews, I make resolutions, the works.

While most might see 2021 as the year that “life got back to “normal”, it was a very challenging year for my family and I. Not bad, but just challenging. Especially the latter half of the year.

However, through all the challenges 2021 gave us, my family stuck through them together. We are stronger, closer, and more loving because of them.

Life did begin to look more normal compared to 2020. Drew and I were both vaccinated three months into the new year and so we felt much more comfortable to do “normal’ things. However, going back to what was normal was also a struggle for us. Going through 2020, made us realize that we needed to slow down a bit. We needed to take sometime on a regular basis for our selves and stop squeezing in every single thing. Finding a new balance was and has been tough. We are usually big “YES” people, but now we have realized the value in saying “NO” as well.

We did manage to throw a first birthday party for our sweet Hazel. Poor girl was born during the craziest year of my lifetime and had barely met any of her family. So we were grateful that we were able to throw a fun shindig to celebrate our beautiful sweet girl. Right after her first birthday, Hazel started walking and it’s been full speed ahead for her since then. Seeing Hazel’s personality develop has been so much fun! She’s a very shy kiddo at first, but once she is comfortable, she is one of the silliest kid’s I have ever met. She had a bit of a scare with being hospitalized for about four days for oxygen issues, which was one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced, but we’ve got her asthma under control now and feel good about how we are moving forward with things.

For Evelyn, preschool got more “normal”. She’s absolutely blossomed this year and it has reminded me about how important in-person school, and social interaction is for kiddos. She’s becoming such an amazing little person. 2021 has been very good to her. We enrolled her into a great ballet academy and she absolutely loves it. She might be battling a little bit of stage freight but her passion for ballet continues to grow. We took her to the Nutcracker and she’s been going on and on about how she wants to be the Sugar Plum Fairy. She took private swim lessons this past summer and has become quite the little fish, her favorite thing to do this summer was jump off the dock at the beach house. She’s so curious about all the things. She asks us these questions that we can’t believe she thinks of. She’s also so empathetic and caring about others. The world is so lucky to have a soul like her in the world.

Giving my daughters one another has been the best thing I could have ever done for them. They are so sweet together and I am having the best time watching the two of them grow their friendship, what a blessing! This past year has been more joyful because of the two of them together. Evelyn is great at looking over her and teaching her new things, while occasionally cautioning her to stay safe and out of trouble. Hazel’s whole world revolves around her big sister, always trying to keep up and find ways to join in the fun. It’s amazing to watch the two of them together.

Drew and I, on the other hand, had a bit of a rough year. Not as a couple, but we just had a lot of things we were faced with. Nothing we couldn’t handle but we both felt like we aged a lot this year.

Moving back into a semi normal life was a bit of a random struggle. Figuring out what we both felt comfortable with, respecting each other for not necessarily moving at the same pace as the other, it was all about finding a balance there. However, we had a full bottle of champagne the second we were both fully vaccinated.

Drew got a fantastic new job, I couldn’t be more proud of him. However, he went from working from home for over a year to going back into the office and at times working longer hours than we were used to within a week. It all happened very quick and we didn’t have enough time to mentally prepare ourselves or the girls for that big change. So there was a big of a struggle to find our footing within the new change, but I feel like we finally have. Thank goodness. August and September was a bit rough and chaotic.

We lost our first baby, our fur baby, Tessa. That was incredibly tough and I’m so grateful we had each other to lean on during that time. We still miss her dearly and are not used to her absence in our home yet. She was the best pup ever and we feel blessed to have had her with us for as long as we did.

We did gain a niece though at the end of October! I have nieces and nephews on Drew’s side of the family but this is the first time I’ve had it on my side of the family. It has been so much fun watching my baby sister become a mum to her own kiddo. We are all just a big pile of goo for sweet Blair Marie.

At the end of October, we faced the first time one of our children had a serious health issue. With the way everything went down, the first portion of Hazel’s hospitalization and ambulance ride, we couldn’t be together. Drew had to be home with Evelyn and it was so hard for him not to be there and rely only on my communication with him via my dying cell phone. It might be dramatic to say it, but it was a terrifying time for us. After that first portion, Drew was finally able to join us in the hospital and that definitely helped. It was only four days but it felt much longer and it left us extremely exhausted. I still feel like we are catching up from all of that.

Then we lost Drew’s grandmother, the matriarch of his family, in December. She was 93. While this wasn’t a huge surprise, it doesn’t diminish the loss. Like many older relatives, her role was the heartbeat of the family. Not that the family won’t continue on without her, but she was the biggest force keeping everything pumping and flowing. She hosted many of the key holidays and events in the family, she kept you in touch with distance family members, and was just a wealth of family history and traditions. When you think of all that, it was a huge loss.

Despite all these challenges, we’ve been blessed. My husband and I are healthy, our girls are thriving and growing, we have a warm house to sleep in, yummy food in our bellies. What more could we want?

I have high hopes for next year though. I have high hopes for my business, for our home, for our family. I hope we get to travel some next year. I am excited to show the girls how different the world is from our little town and I hope to teach them to embrace and appreciate all those differences. I want to put more focus into Delovely Details now that we are out of the infant stage of life. I hope to get more house projects done and start some of the bigger ones too. I’d really love to have a couple, maybe even a few weekends away with Drew too. My biggest wish, is that we just all stay healthy.

We will see what 2022 has in store for us, I hope you’ll join us for the ride!

Photos: Joy Theory Co.

My Outfit: Morning Lavender