Hello, this is me. My name is Amy, in case you didn’t already know that. ha.

Anyway, I am a 35-almost-36-year-old and I have a problem. {Well, ok, I have lots of problems, but I’m just going to tell you one of them today, but if you follow this blog, you will probably learn about most of them eventually. oh boy} My problem is called “Fear of Commitment”. Ever heard of it? Yeah, I have it.

Why do I tell you this? Well, two years ago, when I started sewing my first hoodie for Evy’s Tree, I launched my little shop off my then family blog: The Adventures of The Miraflor Family. While I struggled to find my footing as a handmade online shop owner, I  became frustrated with the way promoting Evy’s Tree amongst my personal posts made my precious family blog look. You see, I started my family blog with the intent of creating history for my kids. I had even toyed with getting the blog made into a yearly book for my kids to have some sort of written journal for themselves. But promoting clothing in between my heartfelt thoughts and ramblings regarding raising a family didn’t seem to click for me. I mean did I really want my kids to see hoodies in their family history?

And besides…I had no idea how Evy’s Tree was really going to turn out. Was it going to be a short lived thing? Or worse, was it going to explode into something big and would I exploit my family by having the Evy’s Tree blog be combined with my family blog? So I separated them and tried to maintain two blogs. To be honest, it was SUCH a pain. First, I’m not a very good self promoter and in the end I got so very tired of talking about hoodies all on one blog. Furthermore, I felt that the Evy’s Tree blog lacked a personal touch, and I noticed that most of you all read both blogs, seemingly not minding hearing a little bit about my life.

My biggest concern, way back in the beginning, was this: My Faith. I am sure, if you follow me on any social network, you have figured out that I have some. My faith is very important to me…my husband is in the ministry and we rely very strongly on our walk with God to get us through life. I often quote Scriptures, say prayers and discuss church lingo on my family blog. I have to be honest, I know they say you shouldn’t mix faith and business…so I in the beginning I felt it might be better to have some separation there. But you know what? That never worked. Because my faith IS me. And if anyone who buys Evy’s Tree wants to know more about me they will very quickly learn about my faith. Having a separate blog would never help me in that area…it just created two arenas where I was trying to be myself, and one was suffering.

So after MUCH thought and MUCH counsel, I have decided to conquer my fear of commitment and combine my blogs.  I had to realize that if Evy’s Tree flops, or if it goes big time, or if it does absolutely nothing, it is still me. My family will always have Evy’s Tree in their life, regardless of what it does. It is a part of us. And Evy’s Tree, until the time is right to hand it over to someone else, will always have us.

So here we are. The Miraflor family. And Evy’s Tree. We are a team.

So the blogs have been combined. It is now called “The Adventures of The Miraflor Family…and Evy’s Tree”. Our family will always be first. Always. Although we will talk about Evy’s Tree on this blog, this blog will mainly focus around my family. I hope you are all ok with that. I have so many wonderful readers over at the family blog. I love you all so much, you leave such special comments and say such kind things. I hope you will read this blog still. I hope that Evy’s Tree being added won’t turn you off.

And the Evy’s Tree readers..well, to be honest, I have no idea if I have any. Ha. I don’t get many comments on the Evy’s Tree blog so I’m not sure anyone even pays attention to what I post here, but if you are, I hope you continue to read and that adding my family to the blog doesn’t turn you off either.

Lastly, when I decided to combine the blogs, I had to try to figure out who would host it, the family blog or the Evy’s Tree blog…after much thought, and for many reasons, I decided to combine over on the Evy’s Tree blog. So if you read the family blog over on blogger, you will have to subscribe to the Evy’s Tree blog {what you are reading now}, unless you already do, that is.

The blogger Adventures of the Miraflor Family will stay up for a while with a post pointing everyone to the new blog. I hope you all take some time today and subscribe to this new blog and make sure you don’t miss a post.

Thank you friends, for your understanding and support. I hope you will continue to walk with me during this journey my family is taking. We are having a good time navigating the waters of being a family in the ministry that lives with a handmade business smack dab in the middle of their world. I hope you have fun following along. We love you all

xoxo

Oh PS, I can’t end this blog post by saying a GIANT thank you to my graphic designer Brooke of RightLeft Studios. She has been BEYOND patient with my back and forth about these blogs and has painstakingly worked to make sure both blogs combined well and were successful. She has been a giant God send in my life, dealing with my very unorganized way of advertising and is so very, very understanding with my sometimes frustrating way of thinking. ha. Thanks Brooke. You are AWESOME!