Oh my goodness, what a year it has been!! I can’t believe it’s already been one year since our shop opened. At the same time, it feels like TEN! :) It has been such a learning experience for us. We’ve done a lot of things I’m so proud of and created a lot of products that have such beautiful purposes. And we’ve made a ton of mistakes, fallen flat on our faces a few times, dusted ourselves back off and kept running. (image above by Shay Cochrane)

I’m thrilled to announce our shop anniversary sale that will run today only until midnight! Take 20% off your ENTIRE purchase with code ONEYEAR13 at checkout. AND, I have some fun updates to share!

We have LOTS of new products in the shop along with some beautiful images by Shay Cochrane including our personalized mugs, hardback “grace not perfection” journals and “grace not perfection” tees. (image above by Shay Cochrane)

We’ll be tweaking our look later this year. I’m OVER THE MOON about it. We’re in the beginning phases of redeveloping the logo and some of our graphic brand elements, but I’m thrilled about the new direction. Joyful. Classic. Purposeful. Those are the words we’re building off of. (image above by Shay Cochrane)

I’ll be speaking at the Making Things Happen Conference in Chapel Hill in October (we only have SEVENTEEN seats left as of this post!) as well as at Pursuit 31 in Atlanta! I’m SO EXCITED to meet so many new and old friends!

I’m about a YEAR behind on thank you notes (the cobbler’s kids have no shoes…) and I feel terrible! So many of you have sent me the sweetest cards, gifts, notes, texts, calls and prayers over the past six months. 2013 has been a doozy for our family, but the second half is looking up! Fertility madness continues, for those of you who are wondering :) but we are prayerful and hopeful that Brady will be a big brother one day soon. :) We have a lot of friends going through this, so I’d love your prayers for them too.

Our Simplified Planners sold out in record time. We’re expecting TWO small re-stocks soon! One small shipment in the next week or so (turquoise and pink only) and one small shipment in September (emerald, turquoise and pink). We also have a handful of perfectly-imperfect Simplified Planners available. We’ll be posting those in a few weeks also. They have itty bitty marks or imperfections and didn’t pass our quality check. Stay tuned! (image above by Shay Cochrane)

We ventured into potty training land. More on that later. For now, ridiculously cute photos of Brady. Left – Brady and I in the back of my Mom’s Murano during a stop on our road trip home from Pensacola. Right – photo by Michael Newman Photography in my Mom and Dad’s garage. :)

I’m so happy for my Dad and the success of The Pop Pop Shop! He’s shipped over 75 handmade, engraved wooden growth charts and is just so excited about them. I’m a little biased, but his craftsmanship is unmatched. Michael Newman came over to my parents house while Brady and I were visiting last week and took some amazing photos of my Dad in his work space. Most were with film, but here is one of the digitals. It makes my heart so happy to have this. Thanks, Michael.

On a personal note, we’re getting back to normal over here after losing our big bull mastiff, Briggs to lymphoma. We miss him dearly but are so grateful for seven and a half years of happy memories. I used Blurb.com to create a little book with all his photos. It’s been helpful to have it when Brady asks questions about where Briggsy is. We were pretty sad this morning after I made banana oatmeal. Briggs used to always get Brady’s extra banana half (I’m allergic) and he wasn’t there to gobble it up. I’m so glad we have all these sweet photos. Makes me so grateful for my photographer friends.

I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about getting back into scrapbooking – with Project Life. Are you guys familiar with Project Life and the incredible Becky Higgins? She’s magnificent and so focused on building her brand on what matters. She sent me an awesome album and pages and I’m thinking about using Printstagram + some of her pages to document our days with my Instagram account. Goodness knows I take enough photos that way! I also started keeping track of Brady’s hilarious words and phrases with the notes app on my phone, so that I can eventually write them on Becky’s note cards.

That’s it over here! Don’t forget, our ONE YEAR anniversary sale ends at midnight (CODE ONEYEAR13) TONIGHT!

Over this past year, I am most grateful for our sweet customers who’ve been so supportive and patient and incredible. And… Gina. Many of you know Gina Hafley – our Shop Director. She’s incredible. She works so hard and takes care of everyone so amazingly. I feel so blessed having so many great people in my life – it’s because of you guys that I’m able to be the kind of mama I want to be.

xo,

Emily