Yesterday was Easter Sunday. The weather was gorgeous! Evelyn had been excited to visit all of her cousins for the last week. I was excited to see family and catch up with them. I posted this super cute photo of my family in our Easter wear. I grabbed some pictures of the Easter cake I made for dinner that night with my in-laws, and we grabbed a couple of pictures of the girls wearing the sunglasses the Easter bunny brought them.

By all accounts, it looks like we had a great Easter holiday. And really, we did. We had a nice day. However, the picture above is completely misleading.

Evelyn was sick. She tested negative for the other thing, it is just a really nasty cold. But it was enough that we had to cancel all of our plans for the day. We stayed home and she rested and allowed her body to fight this virus.

She was pretty tired, although she mustered a little bit of energy to be excited about her Easter basket from the Easter bunny and a quick mini egg hunt we threw together for her. However, after that, she went back to sitting under a blankie on the couch. Poor kiddo.

I have two pounds of bacon in my fridge that I was supposed to bring to the brunch at my mom’s house. I have desserts for 8 people for the dinner at my in-laws house Easter night. I have a bunch of Easter baskets for friends and cousins that didn’t get delivered and are still in my laundry room.

The reason I am telling you all this is to remind you that Instagram and social media is just a highlight reel. It is almost never an accurate depiction of someone’s life entirely. I am very guarded with my girls’ privacy. I ONLY ever intend to post the highlights because I am personally not comfortable with posting anything else that might follow them around forever on the internet. So I just post the good. However, I hate to think I’m part of this narrative that I have everything together. That my girls are always perfect angels or that we never have hiccups or bad days. We do. Occasionally, I even feel like that is all we have. We have meltdowns, we have medical issues, I have days where nothing seems to go right. That is all rarely seen on social media but it is there.

The pressure on mums, specifically, on social media during holidays is intense. We want these perfectly curated Easter baskets, with the beautiful put-together charcuterie boards, and don’t forget the boomerang of the mimosa toast at brunch. I am 1000% guilty of all of those. I don’t know that there is anything wrong with all of that either. Why not aim for a great holiday? However, sometimes…it just isn’t meant to be and we should be okay with that too.

Evelyn wanted to wear her Easter dress and I originally thought no. Why risk getting a brand new dress dirty if we were just going to stay home right? Then I decided to go ahead and let her wear it. So we pulled of the tags, and then quickly grab a few family pictures. I’m glad we did that. Otherwise we wouldn’t have this gem of a picture of both girls.

So again, I hope you always remember that social media is the highlight reel. It’s not at all representative of the reality. These pictures were all taken within a span of 10 minutes and then we all put back on our loungewear and had a quiet day.

It was still a wonderful day with my family, even though it was different from how I thought the day was going to go. But wonderful all the same and we felt blessed.

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!