today I was taking some photos of Sophie with the new side snapper on then I started taking photos of Sophie, then I started taking photos of Sophie and I

I took this photo (excuse dishevelled weekend look!)









and then I could feel Sophie looking at me so I turned around to look at her and she did this totally out of the blue!







awwwwwww aren't kids just the most wonderful little surprises!

Wow hasn't it been a while! but before you walk off shaking your head in disgust at my blogging hiatus I can explain.....

I have been unbelievably busy..... a quick rundown:

• well as you know the new online store opened....well we have just gotten busier and busier as the weeks have rolled on, we now have most nappies instock (yes even bling!). New members have been added to the team and we are constantly adding new and interesting stock!
• We now wholesale! this is a scary and exciting progression for us, but a logical one...we now have three approved resellers (2 over seas and one IRL store in Sydney) We are considering a few more overseas applications at the moment, how exciting...surely I need a business trip to check on my business contacts? What do you recon?
  
• Maya turned three...yes my baby girl is three now. She is a doll but boy do we know about tantrums! LOL
• Sophie is walking and starting to do the baby babble, she is just the cutest and most placid little thing, rarely cries and is really easy going. A marked contrast to her older sister but I love them both.
• Vaughan and Lockie have immersed themselves in school and sports with Vaughan excelling at Soccer and Lockie realising he is naturally talented at TaeKwanDo and gymnastics.
• I had some tests for bowel cancer, they have come back with pre-cancerous growths so that adds a whole new dimension to our family and my health care regime.
• we have put our house in Sydney on the market...so I guess we are in Brisbane to stay!
• I have started going back to the gym.....it has been a long time coming and well overdue, but I am enjoying it immensely and have already started getting results.

With things now running smoothly for the business I have been able to reduce my working hours a little from a 60-70 hour week back to a 45 hour week. I am using my extra time to get some much need time with my children and to spend some time looking after myself. If a cancer scare does nothing else for you it makes you think about looking after yourself a little better.

I am also FINALLY having time to release the long line of products all sitting here patiently waiting to have the final logistics dealt with so they can be released! With me learning to trust the team and delegate some of the work I have freed myself up to do what I do best, run my business and develop new products. I love the creative side of this; it alleviates my burning need to make and design, and boy do we have some awesome stuff in the pipelines!

In the next couple of weeks we are releasing the much awaited Wild Child Sidesaddle. A side snap nappy with perfect fit and awesome performance. The final tester nappies are going out on Monday and Wednesday, this is for a minor re-test of a very small change, so all going well they should be to market very very soon. If you have had problems with the fit of other nappies then do your self a favour and get a sidesaddle. They deal with fit issues you may have had such as wing droop, leg gaping, poor fit on waist or around the legs.

Want a sneak peek????






Aren't they just lush? I just love them, and best bit you can embellish the front and the back....I can see myself going a little crazy!


On a personal note, I feel more settled her now, I have made a few friends here in Queensland, and while I miss my friends in Sydney I am enjoying it here now. I have also made some online friends and am part of a WAHMs (work at home mum) forum so I can chat with other mummas who experience the same things as I do with the challenges of running a business and a young family from home.

A couple of friendships I have made over the last couple of years have deepened from mates to very close friendships indeed. You find the most wonderful friends in the most unexpected places. It delights me that I have such a broad base of friends of all different types in locations all over the country. Some I speak to occasionally, some I speak to almost every day, I am grateful for them all.

I moved to Brisbane just over a year ago and really have only made one friend until recently. I work pretty much 24/7 and rarely have time off for anything. It has been getting me really low and I have been feeling dreadfully lonely. I work most nights until 1-2am and get as much work as I can done during the day, but that varies depending on what day it is and what mood the kids are in. Then I am back up at 6am tending to the baby.

In Sydney, I had an amazing network of friends, and a great support network to help with the kids. Here in Brisvegas I have neither, I don't really have many friends nor do I get any relief with the kids. So I often feel like a pressure cooker, on the verge of an explosion. I haven't really had time off from looking after the kids now for a year. DH loves his new job, but he works in the valley and spends many hours away from home, which pretty much makes me a solo mama to 4 kids and running a business all by myself. I was becoming increasingly depressed and realised I needed to do something that I enjoyed with a group of women who had similar interests to me. I am a very artistic person, so I had a bit of a scout around to see what was available on the pennisula.

WOW that was a bit of an essay.....anyway.......

I found a patchwork shop not too far from home ( I am still breastfeeding, so I needed to be close to home). I tried patchwork a few years ago and really didn't like it at all, but since there was not much else on offer I thought I'd give it a go again. I'm glad I did. When they showed me the lap quilt we were to make for the beginners class I was under-enthused. It was not my taste AT ALL. It was a very traditional sampler, done in burgundy florals with cream backgrounds and olive green sashings. BLERGH. So I changed it, as I do....I thought it was important to learn the basics, so you have a good foundation to spring from. So I did the sampler squares with a modern twist..............I LOVE IT! I could never have imagined it turning out better! Of course when I got asked if I wanted wool, cotton, polyester or bamboo batting I opted for bamboo!

Poor little Sophie, she is teething and boy does she know it! I never even knew with my other kids they had teeth until one day I put my finger in their mouth. Well Sophie has pretty much had the full gambit of symptoms; runny nose, diarrhoea, temperature and she is obviously in pain! poor little tike. I got some Brauers teething relief and that seemed to help significantly.

Last week I was pretty much a baby mattress. She just wanted to lay on me and cry. So I didn't get much work done! This week I am hoping to improve on that. I have just listed almost 100 workhorses and Showponies in the store. I have a table full of Bling, fitteds and cotton Ai2's that need boosters and linings cut.

I am aiming to get the Bling in store by 7pm tomorrow night and the fitteds listed by Thursday night. The Cotton outer Ai2's should be ready to go after easter. Of course this all depends on Sophie and how her little white monsters in her mouth are behaving, but fingers crossed she does seem much better today....

The timing could not have been better! My friend Mel from Beetlebums made Sophie the most awesome carrier I have ever owned and I have 4 kids and have owned lots of carriers!

It is so unbelievably comfortable and well made, Sophie (9 months) fitted in there with ease and I could not even feel her weight at all! I decided to try it on my 3year old, and again because of how well made it was the weight was on my centre of gravity so she didn't get heavy like she does in other carriers.


The best bit though....is it is so damn sexy! I love the print! Frida has been my favourite artist forever and I love the attention to detail....like the cute little appliqués and beautiful topstitching. I love everything about this carrier, there is not one thing that I would change, except I want MORE!

Anyway Sophie decided to give it a big test, she has been teething and she is really struggling with it. All my other kids got through relatively unscathed, Sophie has made up for all of them, poor little button :-( So she has pretty much been living in the carrier since we got it. So big thank you to Mel mwah! you saved our life this week....well my sanity at least and you made a unhappy time for Soph a bit more bearable.

You know when you meet someone for the first time and you just go yeah...this is cool we are soooo on the same page. Well today I met a kindred spirit, someone who has similar ideals and morals. Who enjoys their work and honours those who try to do it with integrity and originality. And who has a quirky sense of style and awesome taste in fabrics!

Well today I met two women who just rocked! Both called Mel. One Mel, Beetlebums Mel and the other Mel Creativity Mel were two of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. We all just clicked straight away and our kids played like they had been friends forever!

Beetlebums Mel and I had been working on a swap for a while and I just wanted to show you what I got!


How bloody awesome are they!

It is hardly surprising considering I snapped Nappy Mountain today....

And I thought 24 nappies was a lot, Nappy Mountain covers my entire studio desk! There are a couple a hundred nappies there! Well most of them are sold now but I thought I would take this photo for posterity!

We had the launch of the new Website and all our new goodies. There were over 700 unique visitors today to the new website which is cool and it didn't crash, so I suppose that is an improvement. We did however have customer account problems :-( which is not so good.

When we made the new website, we imported all my customers from my old site over to the new site, thinking it would be helpful to my customers if all their details were already there. WRONG! It caused massive account problems for my customers. They were not permitted to sign in because they didn't have passwords linked to their accounts and they couldn't make new accounts as they already had accounts with their email.....arrrgghghhhhh

I hope I have fixed it now....I have deleted all the old customers off the database, so hopefully now when people go to create an account they can.

I really wanted to apologise to those that felt stress/distress at the stocking....it certainly added to the hyena frenzy!

Anyway it was a fantastic launch and it was wonderful to see so many of you there! It certainly made working until 2am every day for the last 2 weeks worthwhile :-)

SOOOOOO..........what's coming up?

• Well I have fitted nappies half cut out, so they are next cab off the rank.
  
• We will also be doing some more cotton outer AI2's, they were very popular and I have received several requests for more!
• We are currently getting more Couture pants in 18-24 months sewn up.
  
• There is another batch of Workhorses and Showponies being sewn at the moment.
  
• There is more Bling happening too. We have just put something in place that should enable us to make A LOT more Bling, so that's something to look forward to.
  
• There are some uuuber cool bibs in the works as well, Sophie has started on solids, and it reminded me of how essential this item is!
  
• There are more breast pads happening, they boys have been cutting out Bamboo Velour and have a nice tidy pile! Mum just needs to sew them LOL
• Finally, our wool Day to Night Covers are inching closer to completion...they are certainly ones to keep an eye out for.
  

Anyway I think I get an early mark tonight it is only 1.37am and I'm done! No I'm not Sophie just squeaked!