Why no posts, you ask?

Because I've been busy. Seriously, no lie, crazy, terribly, non-stop busy. And, I'm working SO much at this point, that I just can't bring work home (even blogging) with me anymore or I'd be working around the clock. I've officially moved my entire "creative" work station to the store. I had a work counter installed, just like the one I have at home, but now the one at home is bare and a little lonely looking (weird). All of the tulle, and fabric, and scissors, and ribbon, and sparkles, and flowers, and even my sewing machine.....at the store now. So, now I can work on my tutus and sewing projects in between customers and a bazillion other things during my 12 hour stints at the store. Sweet, I say. Having all of that stuff out of the house kind of took a major load off - I don't feel as stressed when I'm at home. I don't always feel like there is a "project beckoning".
I've worked at least five open to closes since the store opened, and haven't had a day off in 10 days. I'm up late doing laundry now because I have tomorrow off completely - no store at all - and I want to spend it with the kids, not doing laundry. I'd rather stay up until 4am doing laundry and only get a few hours of sleep than have to do it tomorrow. To just be honest, I miss my kids. Being that I used to be home full-time, this has been a major switch for all of us. I want to concentrate on them tomorrow, not the mountain of laundry in the basement.
Well, here's the DL on the store. It's been good. We've surpassed our expectations by quite a bit. I placed more orders earlier in the week, so among other things we will have an entire new stock of aden+anais by Wednesday. This time I also ordered some of the towel sets which I think are absolutely adorable. We are also getting in some really cute toddler boy outfits by an Etsy designer - pants with matching long sleeve t's in sizes 2T-4T. And...the birthday hats will be in soon. If you want one of these, I'd pop in quick because I only ordered a few - a few with the number 1 and a few with the number 2. I'm SO excited to get these - they are beyond-words cute. We have more knit hats coming in by two different designers, and more rocker t's. There are a few other possible orders I'm wavering on, and a few more that will be ordered closer to September and October, but I think everyone will be happy with what's coming this week for now. Hopefully these shipments will last longer than a week. :)
So, obviously there is no more stay-at-home-Mama in the house. Jaxie had his first day at daycare a week and a half ago and is...well, not quite adjusted yet. His teacher is amazing - very motherly and loving with the kids which is great. Every time I walk in the room she always has them cuddled around her reading books or doing some sort of art project that they need a LOT of help with. She's very patient. Anywho, he's fine in the car on the way there, fine walking through the main door, fine down the hallway, but the second I put my hand on that doorknob to his classroom the wailing starts. And I'm talking full tears, screaming at the top of his lungs, clinging to me with his legs, and pleading "Mommy" (the worst). However, I did wait outside the door on Friday and noticed that pretty much as soon as I left he stopped, so that made me feel a little better. I don't think he's napping well because he always looks exhausted when I pick him up. And of course, the first thing he does when he gets home is run to the fridge, yank on it and say "ba-ba"? And....I give him one. Oh yes I do. Guilt works wonders.

Five Days.

Five days. Five days. Five days.
Five days to enter in inventory. Five days for final touches. Five days to finish up appliques on the t-shirts. Five days to make 10 more tutus. Five days to figure out our POS system. Five days to finish the fitting rooms. Five days to tie up the window displays. Five days. Five days.
That's just about all that I can't think about. Five days.
I'm doing a segment on KARE 11 tomorrow at 4:00. That makes me feel a little pukey, but I'll take one for the team and get 'er done. It'll be cool to showcase a bunch of our product, not so cool that I have to do TV. TV makes me nervous - way nervous. So, if you want a good laugh, and to see me trip over my words, feel free to watch. It should be a good time.
I'm stoked for the Grand Opening party - but what do I wear? Like I have time to go shopping - with all my free time. I don't even have time to go get a mani/pedi. I feel like I'll have to do my best JUST to look presentable.
I'm also excited to listen to Tim sing - I loooooove his voice. We're also going to have my cousin's husband Travis do some acoustic from 4-5, and he has an amazing voice as well. Lots of good music...
Ninja mode today.

Here we go...

So folks, it starts to get a little crazy now. Our Zulily.com sale is tomorrow. The store is down to the final pieces being put together. Market is one month away, and we are in a mad rush to get everything put together. I'm swamped to say the least.
I've decided not to release any more pictures of the store until we open...I want the rest to be somewhat of a surprise.
I spent last night at the ER with Jaxie - he had a fever of 104.4 most of the day and I couldn't get it down, even with a couple double doses of Tylenol and Motrin. We got home around 2:30am, and I had some work to finish up, so I didn't get to bed until 5am. Needless to say I'm pretty exhausted, but have to head to the store shortly to do some POS training on our new system...
Hence, this is a short post. I'm killer tired. I can't wait for the opening - mostly so I can sleep again.

butters&beans organics Spring 2012 sneak peek!

Here are some candids from our shoot yesterday!

Elliot in our organic lightweight denim and NYC inspired organic t!

Two-week-old Presley was amazing! Love her organic jersey ruffle dress...

Savanna was fabulous and SO patient with all of the pictures, and she looked so cute with Presley!

Henry was SO excited to dig into the amazing cake that Mary Ann made!

It took all the kids a minute to figure out that this beautiful thing in front of them was a cake, but once they did, they had no problems digging right in!

I love this organic yellow and fuchsia dress on little Jessa! FYI, Jessa is Butters' playdate buddy - they're the cutest together... :) And beautiful little Miss Lucy is off to the leftie, and Elliot in back on the right busy with a fistful of cake.
I adore all of my little models! They did such a fabulous job and were total troopers. It was pouring rain when I woke up yesterday morning, so immediately I was Facebooking/texting/calling everyone to figure out what we were going to do and even if we were going to shoot. We decided to just go for it, despite the rain, and I was SO glad we did because shortly after we all arrived the clouds parted and we had sunshine all morning long!

July 21

July 21st is the big day. I have exactly 17 days to get the store up and completely ready to go. I try not to think about this in terms of days, because when I think about only having 17 days I totally freak out. I have to take this one day at a time, or major anxiety takes over.
Orders have been placed, and we have some fabulous product coming in. There have been snags, no doubt, and it sucks that it is a holiday weekend as I can't get anything done. The one thing that I can say HAS gone smoothly is all of the purchasing with my Etsy vendors...they have been awesome to work with and everything is shipping on time. It's the bigger companies that have been more difficult to deal with...minus aden+anais - they have been super easy. Major kudos there. I'm super excited about all of the product on it's way...
The baby and toddler bracelets are amazing...I ordered some with crosses for baptism gifts, some with Swarovski detail, some with pearls and some with "little sister" and "big sister" on them.

I am also stoked about the puffy crib blankets - these look gorgeous.

I love the fact that NO ONE else has this merch - that it can't be purchased at any other stores. We are the ONLY ones that carry it. That to me is absolutely awesome.
Isobella & Chloe should be here in time for the opening, but I'm a little worried that Tea Collection will not. I'm waivering on bringing in Appaman - it sells like mad on the east coast, but I'm not sure it would do well in the midwest. It's at a little bit of a higher pricepoint than I would like as well...BUT, it's also super cute. I'm also waivering on Robeez. They have a higher end collection that I absolutely love because it's not as available as the other styles, and I think it's WAY cuter than what you see at most stores....but still waivering. We'll obviously have a bunch of b&b, and my co-designer, Thi, does her own line called YVan, which is beautiful as well. And of course we'll have the tutus...
I was super flattered that we were contacted by Zulily.com a couple of weeks ago, and we have a sale running with them on the 16th. They have 3.5 MILLION members - wow. Just the idea of reaching that many people kind of blows me away...
I have so much in my brain right now it's sick - between the store and market creeping up quickly I'm crazy crazy busy. We have our spring 2012 photo shoot this weekend - and I picked some amazing fabrics. I'll release some early pics of those pieces as soon as I have them. Lots of linens and jersey cotton...and all organic of course. :)