I want to quickly tell you about a few things that have inspired me lately. I think you guys care about this stuff, because I know when you tell me what's on your radar I find it quite interesting. But in addition to the inspiring stuff I need your travel trips on how to deal with a mom who is terrified to fly. So terrified that she could possibly have a full blown panic attack on the flight and I'm not even kidding. But first... I'm inspired by: MY STUDENTS + MY BLOG REDESIGN Okay my first inspiration of the moment, other than my baby, are my current students in my Blogging Your Way e-course. I'm so inspired by these wonderful men and women! In fact, before class began I decided to map out my own blog redesign, which I'm currently tackling like a bull charging towards its goal. I'm so excited to soon have this blog made over! It needs updated and I have some surprises with those updates, so decor8 will be a little different in a few months from now... You guys will love it though and I'm happy to say that I'm going in a bit of a different direction with it so it will be much more interesting to us all in just a few months from now.

GOOD FRIENDS I think all of our local friends have been by to visit us since the baby arrived. We are so happy and feel so loved and supported by this! I was also inspired by our friends who visited us from afar - well not too afar but still, they flew in from London just to meet little Aidan and spend time with us. It was very loving of them, a most caring gesture. Sania, Mark and their beautiful children Leila and Luke, came for a four day visit. This was a very beautiful gift for us - and being parents to older children, they really helped us with advice and also showed me how to loosen up a bit and encouraged me to go out with the baby more and do stuff with him just as I would if I were still living without a child. I was terrified to take the bus or subway with the baby. But Sania quickly got me out of that and told me we will do it together and so we did and now I'm on the train with Aidan frequently. I feel free! While they were here, we took Aidan to the art museum, zoo, flea market, shopping, out to dinner, to the beer garden, for a forest walk... He was a busy baby! Here is their son Luke with an ice cream that just happened to have a heart show up in the center. The moment I saw it I asked my husband to snap a photo because I like unexpected surprises like this but also since I felt so much love having them with us at such a special part of our life. Thank you Sania, Mark, Leila and Luke. We love you guys!

DOING A LITTLE OF NOTHING And below, here we are at the beer garden in the forest behind my house. Doing a bit of nothing, really. We sat on the outskirts of the beer garden so we could be close to the playground (not shown), not because we're anti-social! It was a chilly day, this was taken 3 weeks ago, but it was really nice to be huddled together around that table with our children doing nothing in particular. Too bad Mark isn't in the photo, he took it so... But yes, time spent with visitors are cherished times indeed. That's me, Sania, Leila, Luke and my husband Thorsten. In the stroller was a sleeping Aidan.

THE COURAGE OF OTHERS Speaking of visitors, my mother is leaving the country for the first time in her life to fly over here to meet Aidan in less than two weeks! This takes tremendous courage, especially at 65 years old with very few flights under her belt. She lives in Boston and the moment I had Aidan, she decided to put her fear aside and fly over. I'm excited to soon see her again and to hand her Aidan, her first grandchild, and watch her eyes light up. She is so anxious to fly but her excitement to meet Aidan is helping calm her nerves. She'll be here until July so we'll get plenty of time to catch up and do fun things like drive up to the coast and show the baby the beach for the first time. By the way - any good advice for me to give to my mom who is terrified to take an international flight? I upgraded her seat and booked her on a day flight so she's not half asleep when she lands in London (I'm flying to London to meet her and she'll fly here with me), but other than that I'm not sure what else to do to make her less fearful. I love to fly and always have. It's hard for someone like me to give advice in this case.

YOUR AMAZING REVIEWS And finally, I have to thank EVERYONE who has been spreading the love about our book, Decorate With Flowers. In fact, I'm linking every review HERE so if yours isn't listed, please comment below and let us know! Leslie and I are so proud of it and how well it's doing. Tonight in Vancouver at The Cross, Leslie will be signing books and sharing some beautiful floral arrangements she has made for guests. In the Fall, we'll be doing a little book tour in Europe during the month of September. It's been really fun to read all of the gorgeous reviews in magazines, on websites and those that have been blogged by some pretty wonderful people. The only thing we'd like to ask is that if you blogged about our book or bought it and have a few moments, if you could leave a review on Amazon. We'd be truly grateful for that! Oh and the book is going to be released in Dutch, Japanese, Italian and French in addition to the two English language versions and the German edition - 7 editions total so far!

(images: 1/holly becker 2/thorsten becker 3/mark wilson 4/leslie shewring)