Next week, on July 21st, is our store anniversary party. I have been running this business for 9 years! This picture was taken for our first website, 9 years ago, just before we started. Our oldest was 2.5 and the youngest was 6 months.

 It's hard for me not to get at least a little emotional when I share about my business, as it has been a more personal ride than I thought it would be. 9 years ago I was a mom who was let go of her job when I was 9 months pregnant with our second. I felt defeated and scared. I thought my job was stable and then it wasn't. I realized then that not much is stable, so maybe I should try and turn this idea I had into a reality. 1 month later I met with a business counselor to share my idea for a business. After 6 months of planning, I reached a point where I just had to go for it. Though I was scared, and wasn't sure if I could do it without kids and even more so with two little ones, I started. This business is like my 3rd kid (so that would mean I have 5 kids, and the business being right in the middle!). I guess the business was born out of necessity mixed with a desire to see an idea come to life.

It's been quite the ride over the years. Many ups and downs, sleepless nights, feeling insecure in what I set out to do, nervous about an unstable future (which is just part of running a business), however, I wouldn't change it. We have made friends because of our business. We have become a part of our community here in West Duluth. Plus, my kids have been raised in Little Neetchers. They work here with me (or against me sometimes), package & ship boxes, sweep, mop, play, they got nursed here, they watch me working hard, they see the labor of love, and some how they seem to understand the importance of it for our family. It's OUR thing, it's our livelihood, and they are a part of it!

 Our store has never really been about making money and selling stuff, though that does keep us here. It's been about providing something unique for families in the Twin Ports. Something more personal and soulful than a big box store. A store that is simple, carries stuff we as parents love and use, and that actually cares about you and your little ones when you stop in.

Photo from opening our Grand Ave Location 5+ years ago.

We want people to want to shop local, keep their money going into our community and into the families that live here, so we try to make shopping with us special. 

If you stop in and you are feeling overwhelmed at the whole first time parent thing and need a shoulder, we're here. If your little one is driving you bonkers and you come in worried that we will be annoyed at your small human, don't worry, we won't! We GET IT. If you need to nurse while you're here, you are more than welcome to! If you need just one more hand, we are here to hold your baby. Or watch your infant as you carry your screaming toddler to the car. We GET IT! Do you need to just get out of the house for a while and have adult conversation? We are more than happy to oblige.

I really didn't know, at the time, how our family business would affect our lives and those around us. That has been a very happy surprise! I do so hope you continue to choose to shop here, play here, meet other parents here, hangout, let me hold your babies, offer suggestions, and become friends. That's why we are here!

ok, just one more picture, this is my youngest working with me:

To Celebrate our 9th, here's what we are doing:

• 9% off store WIDE (in store or online)
• Giveaways
• Coffee & Snacks
• FREEBIES if you bring a friend new to our store
• Every 9th customer will get a FREE snack bag
• FREE skip hop snack cups with any order over $50 (while they last).
• FREE Britax car seat cup holder to the first 9 customers

For kids we have a flat $4 play time, homemade play dough, snacks, and crafts inside the play space! Stop in, celebrate with us, enjoy some deals, meet our whole family, and have fun! Please help spread the word :) Here's a link to our Facebook event.

Sometimes, after having been in business for 8 years, we forget that anyone new to our store may not know our store's story, or what our name means. So, I thought we'd share! 

Neetchers is pronounced: neat chers. How did this name come about? Well, a friend gave us the Dr. Suess book "the sneetches" for our first born and wrote on a onesie for him, "belly sneetch". From there our son's first nickname changed from Sneetch, to Neetch...to Neetcher, because he was obviously a Neetcher. He was our Little Neetcher!

How did our business start? Well, with our first child, we wanted to give cloth diapering a try. Really though?! My HUSBAND wanted us to give cloth diapering a try. I was thinking pins and plastic pants and had no idea that things had changed. We didn't know anyone that was cloth diapering. So, we did what most people do when they don't know what they are doing....we made a bunch of mistakes. We bought the cheapest diapers we could find. We brought our bundle home from the hospital, put the cloth diapers on, and they didn't work. Everything that went into the diaper came right back out. After several days of changing full outfits every 20 minutes, I quit.

After 2 weeks of using disposables, and a full garbage can of diapers, my husband insisted we give it another try. Back to the web, more research, more info, and I decided to purchase one of each different brand that was recommended. Slowly I figured things out! I realized there are just some brands that are not good.

9 months into our cloth diapering journey, friends started calling and emailing us for info on cloth diapers. They wanted to reuse and save some money, and didn't know where to start, so we were their first contact. When I got pregnant with our second, I realized I could probably start a business helping people start cloth diapering and only sell the brands that we really loved and worked well. Of course, my only idea for a name was easy, Little Neetchers. A business from our first neetcher, for other's little neetchers.

Now, we did not start right away. Just after I went on maternity leave (I was/am a certified Massage Therapist), I got a letter stating that the place I worked for was not going to renew my contract (the bummers of independent contracting, contracts can easily be cancelled). I had our second baby 3 days later. I was not sure what to do. I thought I had a stable job...now what. It was that moment where we thought, well, we don't have anything to loose, let's get some business help and get started.

This is our oldest and #2, just before we started!

So that's what we did. It took 6 months before I was ready to start (dealing with all the questions like: Can I do this? Am I capable?). At the time I had a 2 year old and a 6 month old, and we decided to start small, with just a website and selling mainly cloth diapers and diapering accessories. By the time we had our 3rd baby, I realized that my "hobby" business was getting to be too much work for me to handle with 3 kids at home. Imagine taking 6 boxes to the post office with three kids....and waiting in line for 20 minutes (before the print and ship!). Ugg. 

Around this time my husband decided to quit his job so I could do this full time. I now had an "office" in the basement, and could work on the website, package orders and return emails without little ones hanging on me and crying for my attention. After 9 months of this, our current space came up for rent. We weren't quite ready for a store front, but we basically walked in and fell in love...we opened in our space 2 months later!



Our bubs right after we moved to our store front!

With our new space we really wanted to add items that we wanted for our kids (leaning towards more natural/safe items) that we couldn't find in big box stores, and create a sense of community for parents in the area. So that's what we did. We've been in our space for over 4 years now. We LOVE seeing parents come in when expecting, then seeing the fresh little ones, and seeing them as the grow. We love seeing how families of our first customers have grown. We love that we have created a community for parents here in west Duluth and we hope to continue.

pregnant with #4 in this picture, just after we opened our store front!

Our store hasn't quite been on a "fast track" for growth. With each addition of a child to our family (we had two when we started this business and now have 4), new challenges came. Sometimes I was just plain tired (while pregnant or the joys of a newborn) and didn't feel like working, networking, planning, or moving forward....I was just hoping to not fall asleep while at work. There was one time Joshua had to go to a meeting after our youngest was born, so I had to be at the store when he was 1 week old. It was only a couple hours, but I was useless. A couple people called to ask me questions, but for the life of me I could not answer them, my brain was gone. This is the life of a family business.

#4 :)

Thank you to all our lovely customers who keep shopping with us, and have understood all the ups and downs of us being a family and running a business! We appreciate you so much! We have some things in the works for holiday shopping and more. Please stay tuned. Oh and ask to join the Little Neetcher's Groupies page to stay up to date on new things and ask questions on products we carry! And as always, if you have an questions or need help with something, shoot us a message or give us a buzz, we are here for you! We have a big Birth & Baby Class day coming up in November, so be sure to check out the details on that in our event. Thanks to all of you for keeping us here <3