back from maternity "leave"

When you work from home, and give birth at home, a maternity leave seems a silly thing to call it. The only thing that I really seem to have left is this blog....but it takes time to do all the things that one should when you have a baby, and when you transition into the new old routines again. It all takes time, which doesn't leave much for blogging. I won't go into too much detail, but I will say that I had an amazing second birth experience - one that I couldn't have imagined making happen a year ago when I first found out I was pregnant again. My first son's birth happened to me. My second son's birth transformed me. Veli Hanka arrived at 10:16am the morning of December 26th after six hours of smooth, natural labor. Our second boy was born in our basement, in a birthing tub, next to a roaring fire. The Japanese try to avoid fours ... but so far my little family of four is very harmonious - it's like he allows everything to fall into place. Veli - (sounds like belly) - means 'brother' in Finnish and 'guardian' in Turkish. Hanka is my mother's maiden name and the surname of my late grandfather who passed just over a year ago.

The last three and a half months, during the snowiest winter Minnesota has seen in years, have been spent laying low at home and getting used to new routines. I tried to refrain from jumping back into work until the 3 month mark, but I failed. Luckily (and possibly because of the fact that) I work from home! One project that I tackled within the first couple weeks was to design these THANK YOU cards. My husband took the photograph and I designed the cards to fit a specific envelope that I have and use often. I wanted the card to provide a space for a written note but also allow the thank you to be visible right away . The layout also allows people to save just the photo element that has his name and birth details included on the back side. With the immediacy of facebook, we didn't send out an official birth announcement, but I considered changing the thank you to 'welcome' and that would have worked as a great for that, too.