Welcome To Sweet Rose and Wren!

Hello and welcome to my little corner of the web!  I am so thrilled you are here!  Let me give you a little background of my story…

I first started blogging when my oldest was one… that was over 9 years ago now.  I’ll be honest, I had no interest in starting a blog.  I didn’t even know what blogging was all about.  My sister was big into reading blogs, and reasons unknown to me, was very persistent in me starting my own.  “What am I supposed to blog about?  I don’t get it?”  I would always tell her.  But after much hounding from her, I finally caved.  Little did I know what a blessing that would be.  I started a personal little family blog.  My very first posts were pretty dumb.  haha!  Things like “we watched my SIL’s dog over the weekend.”  LOL.  But it wasn’t long before I became hooked.  It became a great outlet for me, and a source of journaling.  I was posting multiple times a week, and started discovering other bloggers.

I was SO inspired from these bloggers!  I’ve always loved to decorate my home, craft, and create.  But my interests in these things GREW as I discovered all of these talents out there.  And then, these said bloggers introduced me to a thing called Pinterest.  Mind blown.  haha!  My yearning to craft exploded, and 90 percent of all my decorations for Christmas that year were DIY crafts.  And I didn’t stop there.  I started finding tutorials on photography, and subsequently found myself immersed in another form of art.  Without any expectations, other than to better my photography skills for my own personal goals, others started asking me to take their family photos for them.  And my photography business was born.

I never had intended on starting a blog, and especially never intended on starting a photography business.  But suddenly I was immersed in both full time, and I started a couple of public blogs for my Photography business, and crafting adventures.  It was wonderful for a while… my oldest was our only child for 5 long years.  I certainly had the time to pursue all of my new-found dreams.  We had struggled with infertility for 3 of those 5 years, and then my second was born.  I continued with my photography business, and blogging on the regular. But before I knew it, we were expecting baby number three!  …And then FOUR!  Those last two came so unexpectedly fast (especially for how long it took us to get our second child here)  And suddenly everything else I was doing came to a complete halt.  I had to start turning away photography clients.  And finally came to the conclusion to stop all together.  I simply could not balance it all.

The last post I shared on my personal family blog was the birth story of my fourth and last child.  Yes, even my personal blog was neglected.  Now my baby is 18 months old, and I have two in school.  My yearning to create has never ceased in all this time.  During my little “break” I continued to craft and decorate on a small scale, and started an Instagram page.

The feeling to “start again” has been on my mind for the past year.  It was a matter of patience.  Waiting for the right time.  I have done just a few simple blog posts over the past couple of months on my original blog.   But after much thought, and a lot of prayer, I have come to the conclusion that I need a true fresh start.  Something new entirely for this next season of life that I’m in…  And “Sweet Rose and Wren” was born.  I feel like I have been all over the place this past decade.  But all of it has led me here.  It feels good.  It feels right.  But at the same time it’s so scary!  Starting completely over sounds so daunting.  Yet at the same time, it’s so refreshing!  I feel I have learned a lot about myself in this past decade.  I have many interests, so many things that I love.  I’ve discovered so many inspiring people along the way!  And I’d love to be able to pay it forward.  I want to share my love for creating, for embracing change that leads to growth, and my love and gratitude of this life to all who care to listen.

I’m not entirely sure where life is going to take me next.  But I have many dreams and ambitions, and I feel this is a great place to start to see those dreams through.  And I’m grateful to have you on this journey with me!

{This is my whole world.  My reason for being.  My family.    -Photo by Shanda Photography}