a new day...

noah went to his first BD party this weekend... miss e turns 3 this coming week and we celebrated early with her - noah even put on his best dapper duds for the party! here he is with miss e and her dad.

and in other firsts, i sent noah to "day care" today - he is being watched by my friend down the street. i was a bit sad - worried if he was being good, worried if his tummy hurt, worried that i should have sent more milk - you know all those things that moms worry about. but he did well and the 5 hours flew by! but it gave me a chance to get work DONE that i needed to for MR and i think i am lucky i am able to have the best of both worlds - working and also being near my child. i can't ask for much more than that!

getting back into the groove...

well with baby noah sleeping so well, i have a chance to actually get some LOs done! i did this one tonight for a challenge i put together for scrapper's bliss (www.scrappersbliss.com) i will be chatting with them on sunday at 8 pm CST. if you want to pop in and ask me some questions, feel free to do so.

i love chatting with ppl to help them understand Maya Road. do you remember the old spreadsheet programs with the "WYSIWYG" notation? that is totally us - What You See Is What You Get when it comes to deb and i. we love to share our dream of MR and we try to be generous. and we don't do drama. and i am not keen on complaining (or complainers). - life is totally too short for all of that.

hope you all have a great weekend.

2 months...

wow, can my baby be 2 months old already? noah got a check-up today and he has gained 5+ lbs since he was born. this is a picture of david's sister and noah after the trade show. i think it is such a cute picture - noah looks like a little old man with his jeans pulled way up to his chest! it is funny to see how noah has changed - when he was born, he looked like a mini-me (literally and in dude form) but now when i see these pictures, i am seeing more and more of david's family in noah's actions and features.

i compare this picture to this one from when he was born:

and i am a little sad to see how grown up he looks in just 2 months! but so excited at the same time to see him make eye contact with us and get excited over toys! he still has this set of lungs on him...

but either way, he is our sweet baby boy. i have so many things i want to teach him as he is growing up. we are trying our best to speak spanish, chinese and english to him so he has a chance to get to learn each of those languages.

so today, i took it easy and spent some quality time with noah - we both deserved it after CHA. we snuggled and i told him a story and we just had a basic good time. that is the stuff of life.

RAK winner...

...Joanna Bolick - COME ON DOWN , you are the MR winner for a tin of chippies! (i will also throw in some new MR ribbons too you lucky gal - LOL) but thanks for all who posted! don't blame me if you didn't win, my DH and noah picked the winner just a couple of mins ago...email me at info@mayaroad.com with your snail mail and noah and i will get these out to you this week!

... i am so lucky to have those two in my life. noah slept a whole 7 hours last night (never thought i would see sleep for that long again) and my DH adores the both of us. what more can a gal ask for?

i have determined i am insane...

well we are BACK and the reason i think i am insane is that we actually DROVE to Chicago from Dallas with Noah (non stop on the way there) for 20 hours and did the show and DROVE back all while noah was 7 weeks old. round trip close to 1900 miles. we won't be doing THAT again.


but as you can see, we all enjoyed ourselves - even noah. and we missed deb, david 2.0 and jonathan terribly but we got it done. like i said in my last post, we do take this personally (deb and i) b/c MR is like our first baby.

i was telling someone the other day that sometimes we feel like MR is the smartest nerd in your high school that you have to acknowledge is there but will never be the one you take to the prom or make home coming queen when i think of ourselves compared to other companies. but that is cool - you know why? the world needs nerds.

and i want to thank everyone that stopped by. i wish i had a chance to speak to each and every one of you - and i hope that we were all polite and kind to everyone who stopped by b/c we tried to be (although, the 1 am catalog assembly made for some grumpy ppl - LOL). but just remember we are all human and we do the best we can.

so much more to say and tell but we will have to wait til i get through my 300 new emails...

we will pick a winner of the chipboard set tomorrow so get ready! and thanks again for all of your support.

oh yeah if you want to see our FULL line and start stalking and/or harassing your LSS to carry it, here are all of our new goodies: www.mayaroad.com/newsletter/2006CHACatalog.htm

it is time...

well, CHA begins in about 75 mins and we are getting ready to go. i am approaching this with a lot of excitement and nervous energy for many reasons. each show is that way i guess - will all the work we have put into the products be a hit or miss? it sometimes is hard but deb and i tend to go with our guts and our guts have never failed us before.

and noah is the most awesome traveling baby ever - 19 hours in the car - just would cry when he was hungry every 3 hours. so we would stop, feed, burp, change his diaper and get moving and he loved it. couldn't ask for more.

with that, i am off to the show!

well...

at least ONE of us isn't up worrying about CHA...

a RAK (aka, Caroline's win it before you can buy it prize)...

... ok all you blog stalking kittens, here is something fab that we want to share with you. as crazy as the show will be this coming week, we want to offer 1 of our new chipboard alphas in a lunch tin - to one lucky blog stalker! this is one of our new chipboard alphabet chippies in a fab tin.

i have heard lots of people debate whether packaging can be the thing that takes a product over the top and we believe the answer is yes BUT since the Maya Road sisters are practical engineers, we love the tin look and we love that you can do something fab with the tin later - storage, gift, lunches, etc.

and we hope you like it too but more importantly, thank you for your support of us in the last 3 years. to jump from a table top at CHA CHICAGO in 2004 to a small booth in 2005 to a double booth in 2006 - we couldn't have done it without you!

so here is how you can win. this RAK entry is good until CHA summer is over (NEXT SUNDAY) - to enter - post here so we at least know who you are (we can't give something to an anon person b/c we can't get a hold of you). anyone is eligible but 1 entry only please.

i will pick someone 1.5 weeks from now and you will be one of the first in the whole world to get a set of MR chipboard alphas! thanks again for making us a BLESSED company. it means a lot.

it is time...

well even the *best* planners in the world get stressed out so i will admit, i am a bit stressed about the upcoming show. well maybe stressed isn't the word but i have a list a mile long that i have to have done before we head out and this time, noah is coming along (i never could have imagined how much a 7 week old would need) and deb and david (and jonathan) aren't coming this time around.

i know a lot of people think i get to swim around in ribbons and chipboard all day and in fact i do but it is more a nature of the beast. i don't actually get to PLAY with anything - more just look at it in piles in my office or having them get ready to ship out of the warehouse. but i needed something to recharge my creative batteries so i made this journal friday night. i couldn't find the paper i wanted to express my idea journal so i decided to just take the naked book and draw on it. all of the "doodles" on there have meaning for me from the turtle (which my cuz AL taught me to draw when i was about 10) to the ribbon on the back (which was something similar i drew for our middle school year book when i was editor). all of these are "me" in the best possible way. even the mistakes!

but i am recharged now and ready to go. there is no need for me to get stressed for things beyond my control at this point. and well one of my mad skillz is solving those problems when they arise. so i can't wait.

to all of you going to CHA, stop by to say hello. if i am not there, i will be off to check on my sweet noah as his grandma is watching him and giving him a kiss. but i will be back. i might try to sneak him into the show if he is being good.

all our bags are packed...

... and we are ready to go! well not all of our bags but darn tootin' a lot of them. i was preparing our shipment to the show today (canyou say 600 lbs of stuff) and boy did my arm muscles get a workout! i was lifting 48 lb boxes in 105F texas heat to get them to fedex and on their way. but it is almost all done. YAY! and to celebrate, here is a peek at some of our new velvet rick rack!

we are coming out with 6 colors and this ain't no cheesy flocked rick rack - this is 100% smooth-like-butta stuff. in fact, i am caressing a roll in my hand right now and it purrs. if i could, i would knit me a sweet sweater out of this rick rack... too bad i am not a great knitter.

hope ya'll are having a great weekend!

ok today it is a closer look at some of our stuff

well here is a closer look at 5 of our chipboard items... you have seen the blossoms III but did you know we are making also:

• petals set - you get to build your own flowers with lots of petals in this one (this is in our new lunch box tin)
  
  
• scrolls - this one is one of my favorites. lots of cool scrolls to accent your page.
  
  
• blossoms III - this one you have seen from noah already but again in our signature MR flat tin
  
  
• foundations coasters books - these are awesome - you get 3 different coaster albums each with a beaded chain in a lunch box tin
  
  
• blossoms coaster albums - just like the foundations but in flower shapes in an lunch box tin
  
  

enjoy!

one more CHA summer update!

well the last of the show samples are here (yay!)

i don't have pics yet but if you love love love our 5" x 7" chipboard binder album, you will LOVE our 4" x 4", 6" x 6" and 8"x8" binder albums. oh yeah did i mention a 5" x 7" tabbed chipboard book? it is very cool too. and what else do we have up our sleeves? um, how about a slew of velvet rick rack? i am totally in love with these. again you will have to wait to see these!

we have a couple more things but i will keep those a secret!

good things...

... well i am sort of stressed about CHA summer esp with deb having her new baby so close to the show so we are sort of running it with what we can with 2 babies arriving within 6 weeks of each other. i did my run tonight to get some endorphins going. it is going to be a late night for me. but i need to keep in mind what is important.

the good things like this:

red...

... well the last of the grandparents have left for a bit and i am left with a spoiled Noah. sigh. seriously, the grandparents need to show some of the strict discipline that david and i grew up with to this kid. but i guess noah is their reward for raising us so they are livin' large...

david was telling me he took a personality test at work today which rated you by color. david came out as a green - sensitive and caring. i asked him what color he thought i was - he said red and i think he is right - here is the red motto: "be brief, be bright, be gone" - i laughed when i heard that b/c i am that way a lot...

but with the blessings of MR, i have also become a better person i think. i have left a career that had me competing and climb a ladder that forced me to dehumanize a lot of relationships. MR allows me to be generous. to support things i believe in. to drive the ship how i want to. i think in this year david and i (and deb and the other david too) have experienced many blessings. from the birth of our babies to the success of MR, i truly believe that what you give, you will receive. those who are generous from the heart will receive it back 10 fold. we see it. we believe it. we live it.

actually we were laughing the other day about how "thrifty" a company we are - we do try to operate lean and mean (trust me you would laugh if you saw how cheap we are) - but that allows us to be generous in ways we want. to support things we believe in. we truly are blessed - all of us. so think about what you are blessed with - b/c you are blessed so you can bless others... that is the way it goes and the more you give, the more you get in return.

more sneaks...

ok. so you want a larger sneak peek? click here:

http://www.mayaroad.com/newsletter/2006CHASummerPreview.htm

yay!

Our nephew - Jonathan is here! I don't have pictures yet but we are so excited! We even had a MR onesie made for him and hand delivered by the grandparents. But I wanted to share this photo of Noah and me from tonight (notice the University of New Mexico Onesie Jersey - dang it - I need to get a hold of a Georgia Tech one for him).

Have a great evening everyone! More sneaks tomorrow!

good news Sunday...

well, deb is in labor (yay!) so that means hopefully today, we will have another Maya Road baby join the family! we are all so excited. if you want to read about it, her DH is blogging on her blog here:http://putintoperspective.blogspot.com/

and to celebrate, noah wants to share this sneak peek at one of our new chipboard books:

we are making a flat chipboard blossom book. it is very cool - sits about 6" x 6" - it will be a " companion" to our other blossom book but we can see lots of uses for this one too (for one thing, you can put larger pictures on it than the other blossom book).

will update with more sneaks and baby news soon!

txrunner...

...

you know this was me from about 2-3 years ago. physically i don't look like this anymore so soon after having noah (and to top it off, i think i found a couple of stretch marks today) but mentally i am at this place you see in this LO. this is the pace of my groove and this is the passion that burns inside of me.

i ran today for about 20 mins in the 95F weather - this is my 3rd run since i had noah. it was something i needed. while every step felt like i was in slow motion and out of shape (like a bad dream i sometimes have where no matter what i did, i was being passed by everyone and their dog), i know that this was what i needed to get me through today - to get the energy to take care of noah, run the day to day of MR and get ready for the trade show. heck, i was already planning some MT products (and boy did i come up with something COOL today) during my run.

some people go to the spa to relax or read a good book but running is my form of relaxation. i am glad to be getting back into it again. i know with the show coming up, i will need more of these during the week to get me through the days. but i welcome it with open arms.

ok a sneak...

you know no matter how hard deb and i try, it seems that we are fly by the seat of our pants when it comes to the new products and trade shows. yes, we are finalizing everything and deb is like 4 days from having her baby (we hope) - but we wanted to share this with you:

introducing our INSPIRATION line:

we will have 42 of these ribbons in all - 6 color schemes and 7 styles. the awesomeness of this line is that 6 of the 7 ribbons are stitched. these are super amazing ribbons - quality of the likes you will not find anywhere else (and for those blog stalkers hounding me about rubons - here is a hint - they pretty much match most of the ribbon styles you see here but you also get alphabets too but i won't show that til later!) .

PS this is the inspiration line - bliss color scheme!

enjoy!

late night ramblings...

...well i am blogging at 1 am central time b/c my MIL has been kind enough to volunteer to watch noah tonight so i can get some Maya Road work done. it is weird b/c i haven't stayed up this late in almost 6 weeks since noah arrived.

... i have a confession to make - today i was trying to calm noah down as sometimes he gets excited and fussy at the same time and i put him in what i call the "magical swing" b/c i know if i leave him there for 5 mins, he will start to fall asleep... as i watched my baby in the swing from about 10 ft away, i watched him calm down and start to sit quietly - almost like a little old man on a porch swing - just swinging away... he looked almost serious. it was at that moment, i felt guilt - guilt that i had a list a mile long of things i had to get done today for Maya Road; i felt guilt b/c i had put him in the swing to calm him down rather than hold him all afternoon. i wish i could have but i could not.

in ways i am lucky, i am back at work, yes but i can choose my hours on most days for now. if i need to make a stop at the warehouse, i can take noah with me. if i am out and about, we can start using the baby bjorn carrier that i have bought. when we go for CHA, noah is coming along too - though he won't be at the show the entire time...

but that doesn't take away that guilt that i sometimes find creeping up on me. honestly i know that having him in the swing is fine - from a rational perspective, i can see that but from an emotional mom perspective, i wish i had more time to give to him. so i think we are going to take some days off after the show - we have earned it. and then we can have lots of together time...

well...

it isn't rub-ons yet but noah wanted to show off his new tin (wink wink) - that has new MR chippies on it...

pst, there will be more than lunch and coffee break tins soon in the MR collection - we are adding 2 more tins!

hmmm...

i wonder what mr noah (aka Maya Road baby number 1) will reveal next from CHA summer?

another peek - this time from Noah...

... well this time, noah was too excited to hold still for the camera - he must REALLY love this chipboard he is holding b/c he cannot stop flapping his hands...

check it out...

oh yeah, what noah is trying to say in the picture is that these will be in some brand new Maya Road tins (wink wink).

a lazy summer day...

... well after COUNTLESS attempts at getting noah to sleep in his crib to no avail, this was the only way we could get him to sleep soundly. we are going to have a fiery one on our hands...

beautiful day...

... it is a beautiful (but hot) day here in texas so noah, david and i decided to take some pictures. and yes, i do think we see noah's eyes open now more so than shut (LOL)! and boy my arms are starting to get a workout with this kiddo! he is putting on weight like crazy! have a great weekend, ya'll!