oh yeah...

... did i mention that Maya Road is going to do rub-ons now? and yes, we know there are a lot of rub-ons out there but ours are made by the best manufacturer we could find and guess what? you will get over 1000 images and all stored in a MR tin...

i don't have a pic yet but i promise you - you will be wowed by what you see from us.

have a great weekend!

1 month...

it was noah's 1 month celebration yesterday - it is crazy to me how much he has grown in a month. he has packed on 3 lbs since birth and is starting to get chubby cheeks. it is hard sometimes for me to realize how much he has grown this month - maybe b/c i am with him most of the day. but we were watching his birth video and looking at some pictures and he has changed so much!

and deb and i were just talking about out our other "first baby" - AKA Maya Road has grown in the last 3 years. i found part of our first display the other day - it was a fiber "montage" i made made and put in a pottery barn shadow box to showcase our fibers - LOL! and we had put it in front of this 4' x 6' peg board contraption my DH and one of my friends had built for our table top. I also still have our Maya Road shirts - ah such memories.

in the end, Maya Road is at a place which I didn't think we would be in 3 short years. 5 years from now? yeah - possibly but not in 3 years. looking back, though we have added 250 - 300 products since then, our philosophy is still about the same. deb and i handle most of the aspects of our business - does that surprise you?

yes, we have help on the customer support end and the warehouse end but when it comes down to it, we (being the anal-retentive people we are) pretty much do it all from product concept to trade show planning to newsletter planning to strategic activities to customer focus (and we have to give a shout out to our DHs too). does that surprise you? yeah, it would be nice to be able to sketch out a design and have someone take the concept - make prototypes and say "here you go" and pop out a product for us but in the end, that is not what we are about. we are the name behind MR and so what if we are not well known? i think our products speak for themselves.

oh yeah thanks to all ya'll blog stalkers who signed up for the newsletter. deb and i worked on that puppy for hours trying to get everything right and in order and it means a lot when you enjoy what we have put together. and for those of you who haven't signed up, make sure you do b/c you are missing out on some sneak peeks as well as some giveaways! go to www.mayaroad.com and sign up on the upper right hand corner - check the "consumer" newsletter for the giveaways!

getting back into the game...

... so i ran a whole 8 mins and 11 seconds tonight after taking over over 5 weeks and can i just say that sucked? ok, just needed to get that out there. i have been very patient about not running since Noah has been born and today just felt right in terms of getting back into it. in my mind, i have visions of getting back into the less than 7 min/mile shape today BUT i know it won't happen. i didn't carry Noah overnight so i know it won't be easy.

... but i am committed again today. the run sucked but i feel so good now. i will have to wait to see how tomorrow goes and if anything feels out of whack - if not, i will try again in a couple of days. i feel good. i don't feel like i am operating at half speed from lack of sleep and from the daily needs of the business.

... i can't WAIT til Noah is big enough to strap into a jogging stroller and take him with me!

our newest model...

ok so we had to bribe this kiddo with some mom's milk and a diaper change but we have to admit he is pretty darn cute! check out his onesie his daddy-o made for him today - it says "MR - introducing our newest addition!"

we got some other pics too BUT i can't show them here - noah is actually holding some of our new chipboards - if you want a peek at that photo, make sure you sign up for our consumer newsletter at www.mayaroad.com (put your email in the field on the upper right hand side for a CONSUMER newsletter). noah's other pic with the chippie sneak will be in the newsletter!

good things...

... this is noah saying "mom you make a mean meal of milk! i give it a thumbs up!" LOL! have a great weekend!

often imitated...

i am disappointed (and frankly a bit pissed) tonight. why you might ask? b/c i was looking at some products another SBing company has put out and it looks a lot like our paisley chipboard sets. it isn't that we have the market on paisleys but you have to ask yourself when the designs punch out EXACTLY like ours, where does the line get drawn from "inspiration" to something else? i won't mention any names here but if you see some out there that looks like ours but isn't, you will know. and on that note, we have noticed some other companies "being inspired" by our tins also. i guess the question is where is the line drawn on inspiration to something else?

but you know what, we move on, deb and i counted 92 new products for CHA summer and you can be sure that they will be cutting edge and you won't be able to beat our packaging with the value. that is what we have built in 3 years. you can't take that from us.

a priceless pic...

this pic cracks me up - the two boys asleep and the remote control is also with them and of course the TV is on! but of course, when i see this sight at 10 pm, i know that my little night owl will be keeping us up all night long.

it is funny what you will let slide when you are surviving on 2 hours of sleep. beforehand, my DH and i had all these rules laid out that we would do X, Y, Z with our baby when it came down to it but 90 decibel crying and no sleep breaks you down! and then the tyke will strike!

so we are working on some retraining of sleep habits for Noah - it won't be easy I know. wish us LUCK!

reflections...

deb had layout published in simple scrapbooks this month (yay deb) about NEW York. i finally got a hold of a copy yesterday and found the LO - in it she talks very candidly about being born in NY and how tough it was to move to the South when we were pretty young. her LO and journaling made me think about that portion of our lives which i hadn't thought about in a LONG time - things that shaped me into who i am today.

moving to the south WAS tough. imagine living in a place where everything was diverse (NYC) to a place where we ended up being 2 of 4 asian kids in a school. that was tough. people ALWAYS asked if deb and i were related to the other 2 asian kids in school (um yeah, we are ALL RELATED). i can remember being picked on in school for being asian all the way through high school. kids would slap me around on the school bus b/c they thought i was Vietnamese and they had things against the Vietnam war (that was a weird one). they called us names. they thought hong kong was in the atlantic ocean.

i can also remember the meanest - smoke - on - the - bus guy (who of course would have to have a locker by me) smacking me in the head and calling me awful names to the point where i was crying when i got home. i was terrifed of him especially since his locker was right above mine. but to this day, i can remember getting off the school bus crying b/c of him. i also remember my mom asking if we needed to go back to school to speak to the principal and i said no b/c i knew that would make it worse.

combine that with being a semi - smart kid and that makes for some lonely years growing up. wow, i haven't thought about all of that in a LONG time. i find it is good and catharic to think about the bad times sometimes to you can better appreciate the good times. i also find that i probably don't put up with much crap nowadays b/c of where i have been in the past. that isn't to say the south is all bad. i also have some pretty fond memories of the south growing up. but it has been a long time since i have thought about the bad.

so again speaking about the good stuff, here is another sneak peek at another product we have coming out - blossoms III chipboard (this one is as good or better than the original which bucks the trends of sequels!) - this is something deb and i have kicked around for a while but we finally got this together!

another sneak!

... ok, i have decided to share another sneak peek here - check out this album i created for my DH for father's day (btw, i KNOW he - DH - is stalking this blog so i don't know how much of a surprise this will be for him) - this is one of our new chipboard binder albums but in petite 4" x 4" size! it was a perfect little album i could create in about 2 hours! AND you see the "dad" on the cover - those are new maya road alphabets too - and the good news is that we have more than 1 set, actually more than 2 sets, oh yeah more than 3 sets that are coming up (i will keep you guessing on how many sets we have in all - LOL). and that is all i can spill today...

...but a great story about david as father's day is coming up - this one is during noah's birth. my DH has always been squimish when it comes to blood, needles, etc. even if i am getting a cut, needle, etc, he can't stand it. i was worried he wasn't going to be able to make it through noah's birth. he was actually doing really well during the whole process, he was holding one of my legs as i pushed - he was even telling me he could see noah had a full head of hair, etc.

i thought we were going to make it all the way to noah's arrival. but then about 3 pushes from the end, the doc was getting ready and grabbed her pair of scissors and suddenly david says "someone needs to come get caroline's leg, i am going to pass out". my leg falls to the ground (from the epidural) and david has taken 5 steps back and has passed out. the nurse calls for backup nurses and they come and 1 grabs my leg and another grabs some OJ for david. i can see him out of the corner of my eye - he is out - his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

so i continue my pushes and noah is out, the doc says "who is going to cut his umbilical cord?" and david pops up and grabs the scissors and says "i will do it!" but i was looking at him - he still looked pale and green at the same time and was not fully there from what i can see. so i said "david, you need to sit down, i will cut the cord". so i grabbed the scissors from him and cut noah's cord. and that is going to be a story we tell noah over and over again. i think we might have even captured some of it on video (LOL!)

anyhow, here is to david and all of the other daddies out there - old and new ones.

have a great father's day!

new camera

...ok so we have been holding out on getting a new camera for like 2 years now and with noah, it seemed like a good time to get a SLR so we finally took the plunge and bought the Canon (EOS Rebel i think). and here is one of the pics we took the other day. quite nice i must admit but i am also a fan of the canon powershot we have had for the last oh 3 years.

this is noah during his quiet time (b/c when he is loud, he is all lungs)...

ribbon sneak...

well here it is. a sneak of our new ribbon - this is only a mere 1 out of oh 40 or so we plan on releasing - i can't show all the goods now but you will get an idea of what this summer is all about for Maya Road. here are two hints:

1. we are kickin' it old skool in terms of "type" of ribbon BUT
2. we LOVE the new skool (with some throwback to old sckool) too in terms of colors and styles.

i love it all - and we had to add a bit of "boy" colors too (of course for Noah and his cousin)!

hope you all are having an awesome weekend!

proud papa...

just wanted to share this pic of David and his boy... i can see the look of love in his eyes - also the tiredness from the 3 am changings!

love these two dudes in my life! and we also CANNOT WAIT to meet noah's cousin who is due to make his arrival in about 1 month!

me and baby...

i noticed today that i don't have a lot of pics of me and noah - so here we are - LOL the boy ius ready to eat again! i look like i have angelina jolie's lips b/c i have a canker sore from the lack of sleep! we are doing great though. when he is feeding i am finding that i am rediscovering music from my past by playing some tunes on my ipod. it is nice and soothing for the both of us and i can keep track of his feeding based on song times. today we were listening to everything but the grl's album - walking wounded.

someone had posted on my blog about the traditional chinese afterbirth of "sitting the month" - where you basically don't leave your house for the month and just rest. my mom and i talked about this. i would LOVE to have done this but at last, i don't have the resources at this point to do so. but even so, we are provided for in ways we couldn't imagine.

when i quit my job to do MR full time, we really didn't think we would be having a baby so soon after i quit (it has been 1.5 years since i have quit my other job) but of course, you need to go with the flow of life. so here we are with our beautiful baby boy and how would i run this company with him being so small and needing me so much? well again, the good Lord works in funny ways i can't always see, we have found Noah someone to watch him - a good friend of ours who is about to become a mom herself and is taking a year off of teaching. we have known her for about 9 years now. and she is awesome with kiddos. and we have agreed that a couple of times a week, noah will be watched by her for a couple of hours. it is great b/c she lives only about a 5 min walk from my place and after she has her own kiddo, noah will also have a buddy to play with and we trust them totally and completely with our baby. and that is a lot to be thankful for!

PS i will post a ribbon sneak this weekend so make sure you are stalking this blog!

new inspiration...

wow, i can't believe that our baby is already 8 days old! and he is such a good sleeper. if you would have asked me 10 months ago, was i ready to be a mom - the answer would have been a no. but now we can't imagine life without this kiddo. david has already designed some Maya Road t-shirts for him - hey just needs to get them made and then we will post them - LOL.

unfortunately, as it is with all small businesses, i won't be able to take 6 weeks off to spend with him. i am back on maya road again - but a bit slower this week. in ways it seems like a blur - CHA summer is almost here - the good news is that we have some FABULOUS NEW RIBBONS! trust me you won't want to miss out on these. we have had 4 ribbon releases since last year and each one has done very well. so we decided to take some of our best ribbon printing/stitching techniques and come out with some awesome new designs. deb and i love what we see and i think you all will too. it is not like anything you will find anywhere else! and of course there are more boy colors now (hee hee).

unfortunately, i can't show you all yet but soon. i promise! i might see if i can just even scan just 1 of them to post.

for now though, i think i need to get back into making some LOs - i no longer have to "borrow" friends' kiddos to do some kiddie layouts. i have one sweet one of my own now.

it is hard to believe:

that this was me from just a week ago - a layout i completed about 12 hours before noah arrived. i was documenting all of the kicks and punches i received and where i thought his bottom, shoulders and legs were!

little did i know that we would be greeted by this sweet boy in a matter of hours:

and i do believe the baby map we had created really was true to where he was...

... it has almost been a week now and soon it will be back to reality for me with maya road but i have taken it easy this week (but if you ask my DH, you know that my definition of "take it easy" is not what most people think - LOL) but with that "taking it easy" i have come to realized, this baby boy has changed me.

i speak with a softer voice and some would even say i am nicer. i can't explain it. i used to approach life with an edge to me and i did up until noah was born. can one little person chnage me that much? david says he notices it too - a softer side to me with this child. and to me that is a good thing - this is natural now - a softer side - without having to work at it so hard. i even tear up over this kiddo sometimes and i am not one to cry very often. i would venture to say that that i hardly recognize some parts of myself. but it is all about growing for the better.

he is here!

well shortly after my last post, our baby decided it was time for him to make his arrival into the world. we hesitated going to the hospital at 3:30 in the morning on sunday but i am so glad we did! our baby arrived at around noon on sunday - he was quite a loud one. he took it easy on me - i only had about 30 minutes of pushing and our dear boy, noah, had arrived. my DH did pass out at the end but that is something to talk about another day (LOL!)

i can't describe exactly my emotions since then - more worry than i have ever felt before but also pure joy at something like a poopy diaper. i no longer need a full non-stop 8 hour sleep at nights. at the same time of feeling a whole new world of responsibility, my DH and i feel such love - and also a new understanding of what our parents went through for us and our journey is just beginning.

i have been lucky to have a support structure during this week. i can honestly say that running your own company at this point is really tough - but deb is carrying on and we have so many people helping. we are blessed.

with that i must go and check on our sweet boy, noah - which by the way translates to comfort and wanderder - we thing that is perfect.