Hello, Fall! Our first trip to Detering Orchard

Fall. Autumn. Otoño. The season when leaves change and the air becomes crisp. When kids head back to school. When "holiday season," the goodness and the craziness of it begins. When the days get shorter and the pumpkin spice lattes sell like hotcakes.

 I have friends who love Fall. Embrace the early morning fog, the onset of rain, the crisp air, the transition and buildup to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Many of them reference the feeling of new beginnings, the warm memories of family, the relief from the heat and dryness of summer. I have friends who dread Fall. The end of the warm weather, the lazy summer nights, the fresh produce from the garden.

We have a complicated relationship, Fall and I. I am somewhere in the middle of my Fall-loving friends and my Fall-dreading friends. I love Fall running, and the colors in Oregon are really beautiful. I also look forward the the holidays, but I am not a cold weather or rainy weather loving person. I'm just not. I don't like the dark, cold, long and dreary days that seem to drag on forever. By the time Spring rolls around, I've been ready for it since mid-January. I love the new beginning of a new class of students, but the push from Day 1 until Thanksgiving is really really hard work. Not that the rest of the year is easy, but those first months are busier and require more energy because it's worth the hard work at the beginning to make the rest of the year smoother.

But I'm trying to embrace Fall. I'm getting into it, and starting with a tradition that I really do love, and one that I'm expanding upon with my own little family. Going to the farm for harvest time. I used to take my preschoolers to the pumpkin patch every year for a field trip, and I really loved it. The animals, the Fall produce, and of course, seeing little ones (try to) carry giant pumpkins in their little arms. So I decided to start that with Olivia last year. She was only 3 weeks old, but we headed out to Thistledown to take some family photos. Here's a picture from last year:

It was at least 80 degrees, and Olivia slept the whole time. But it was a really fun experience, and I loved that we had some family photos among beautiful Oregon scenery. Rob was there too, and my sister and dad came along to help.

This year, I had been seeing so many posts from friends taking their under-5's out to Detering Orchard, which we'd never been to before. So this morning, I called up my sister and invited her to come with Olivia and I to "test drive" Detering while Rob was golfing with his buddies. We can always go back again, right? Today was their "Apple Days" celebration, and we are sold! Detering is the place to be, folks! Here are some photos from today...

I'm always amazed by how big cows are. Maybe that's dumb, but it's true. And we could have reached out to touch these ones they were so close!

Olivia wasn't sure about the cows.

There was this one very small but very beautiful chicken there who was hanging out right by us.

The goats were super cute, but not feeling very social today.

Well, of course we had to play in the water feature!

Runny nose be damned, Olivia was having a great time! The pumpkins were so big compared to her!

Apples and pears for days

"I want this one... and this one... and this one..."

Our little "Pick of the Patch!"

Thanks, Auntie Sarah, for coming with us!

A little bigger than last year!

Chewing on the lens cap. Nice.

Bottom line, today we had a lovely time, and I got excited about Fall. I got out our fall decorations and set them out (up as high as possible, so we're a little underdecorated this year...), and I'm ready to settle in to this season. One step at a time.

I'm still glad the weather is still warm. :)

Happy 1st Birthday, Olivia!

To my darling Olivia, as you turn One:

I can't believe you are already a year old! In a few days, you will have been on this earth for one whole year. And what a year it has been! Your "Dada" and I are so happy to celebrate your time with us so far, and are so excited to see what the next 365 days have in store.

I want to start by saying that we love you. We love you so much it hurts. But it hurts in the best way possible. There really are not words to describe the love a parent has for their child, so I won't try, but hopefully a simple "we love you," will be enough for now, and forever. We are doing our best to show you that love.

I have so many things I want to say to you, so this letter might be a little disjointed. For this letter, I just want to speak from the heart - me to you.

Olivia Mae Anne, you are precious. You bring me unlimited joy every day. I love watching you learn, watching you grow, watching you change, and watching you play. I love your laugh, and your little "words," and your smile and the way you scrunch up your little nose and raise your eyebrows at the same time. I love your fuzzy hair (everyone loves your fuzzy hair). Your smile is infectious, your zeal for life makes everyone around you smile. I truly enjoy being with you and hearing what you have to say. Even if I don't understand the words yet!

Fuzzy hair and infectious smile. <3

I love the way you look like everyone in our family all at once. Last weekend, over the course of 48 hours, different people said you look like me, like your dad, like your grandma MaryAnne, like your grandpa ("pa-pah") Jeff, and like your Auntie Sarah. I see your dad's family in you too - your cousins Sydney and Katie, your grandparents, and your Aunt Kelly too. It's amazing how little babies can present so many "faces" of their family without even knowing it. You represent where you come from, but you are also your own independent self. I hope you can feel that your self is enough. Be true to yourself, but always remember where you came from. And always remember that we are all here for you, all of the time, either in body or in spirit.

When you were first born, a friend told me that "Motherhood is excruciatingly beautiful." She could not have been more right. Raising you has been a privilege and a challenge. The most joyful and most difficult thing I have ever done. And you're only 1! The sleepless nights, the endless nursing sessions, the countless diaper changes, the realization that I probably had some postpartum depression that I denied... It has been a hard year. But I can honestly say, after the first moment that I met you, I have never looked forward to anything more than the challenge of being a part of raising you up to be whatever you choose to be.

I've talked a lot about me, and my feelings. Let's talk about you, and who you are right now. You are curious and adventurous. You love being outside. Each day, you hold your little shoes up as you waddle towards me, and grin like all get out until we put them on and go outside. Today, I didn't move fast enough, so you took my hand and touched it to your shoe, then sat down and waited for me to put it on your foot. When we are outside you explore everything. You touch plants and dirt, and taste them too. Tiny rocks and flower blossoms hold your attention, and you watch the birds fly by and listen to dogs bark. And you taste anything that has been picked off of a vine, sprout, patch, or plant. Blackberries and grape tomatoes are pretty popular with you, but only when picked fresh. I think you are going to miss our garden in the winter.

Curious as you are, you are also cautious in the right situations: with new people, in new places, and anytime something is unfamiliar. First, you watch and listen, and you hold my hand or hug my leg or your dad's, and just take it all in. Once you have a handle on the situation, you ease into being your normal self. You socialize and engage, but first you evaluate. You find what is safe, and right, and familiar, and go from there.

You love to learn. You watch, listen, mimic, or just think about new words, sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and experiences. And then you make them your own. It's almost like we can actually see your brain forming new connections, and it's fascinating. Once you are ready for something, whatever it is, you take off. You did it with crawling, walking, waving, and talking. You do many things your own way, and are and not afraid to fall down or do something wrong until you get it right - even if "right" is a little bit different. I love that about you.

Finally, you have some things you really love, and with no other tool but to name them off, I'll just list them here: You love the PBS show "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood," and you stop in your tracks anytime you hear the theme song. You love blueberries, bananas, pears, waffles, yogurt, and oatmeal. The dog and cat are sources of endless joy and entertainment for you, much to their chagrin, and you love to chase them around the house.

You like to "wrestle" and do "baby attack," when me or your dad are lying on the floor with you: You run over to us and hug us tight, slobbering all over our faces and giggling. You also love to carry things that are bigger than you, or push them around across the floor, and you wear yourself down until you lay on the floor breathing hard with a huge smile on your face. But only for a moment, then you're back up and ready to go again. You also love to play on big person beds by crawling right up to the edge and nearly falling off. But somehow you never have (yet), even when we don't catch you right away. Then you burrow into the pillows and slide across the blankets in the most luxurious way, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone enjoy themselves so much.

Sometimes you let me rock you to sleep still. Even though you can totally do it on your own. I love that we can do both.

This past year has been a whirlwind of love and learning, of triumph and humility. You are truly one of a kind, and we wouldn't change a thing about you. Right now, we are the center of your world. I know that the older you get, the less that will be the case, and it should be - that's what growing up is about. Still, I hope that you will always save a little corner in your heart for your mommy and daddy. Because you will always have a big part of ours. Happy Birthday, little one. Here's to many, many more!

Summer at the Baker House

Today was technically my last day of summer break. Tomorrow and Sunday don't count because they're weekends. I would have been off anyway. Plus I'll probably work one or both of those days, too.

The past few days I've found myself reminiscing about the summer that we had, so I thought I'd document the memories I've made this summer, because, ya know, I haven't put enough on Facebook and Instagram, so they've got to go somewhere... heh. heh.

So here goes... The Baker Family Summer 2015:

One memory that really stands out to me from this summer was going to our play group with St. Mary's Episcopal Church: Itty Bitty Bible Study. Although it runs year round, Olivia and I are only able to go during breaks, but when we do, it's so easy to just slide back into the group, like we never left. These parents and children have become our "tribe," and I have as much fun as Olivia being around them. I learn from them, I enjoy their company, and sometimes, we even talk about Jesus. ;)

Whether "big" kids or little like her, Olivia loves being around this group. She is so comfortable with them, and they all treat her with so much kindness.

We could have also called it Itty Bitty Snack Club, because someone was always sharing snacks of some kind!

Something significant to me that happened this summer was that Olivia started sleeping through the night... mostly. She wakes up at an ungodly hour, but at least there are few to no interruptions until then, and it's the time I'll have to be getting up for school anyway. We also got her to nap in her crib by herself, which was bittersweet for me, since it meant a lot of freedom for me during nap time, but it also meant she wasn't my teeny tiny baby anymore and didn't need me to put her to sleep.

You can't see it very well because it's mostly hidden under her arm, but one thing that really helped Olivia start sleeping independently was Baby, with whom she sleeps every night.

I did a lot of work in my garden, and provided lots of food for my family in doing so. This was the first year I have ever had success growing food, and growing enough to actually save us some money on groceries. Maybe only a few dollars here and there, but not buying tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, lettuce (for a while), and herbs seemed to make a difference to me. Plus, food fresh from the garden is SO much yummier! In any case, I have really enjoyed working in the garden, often after Olivia is in bed, watching the sunset and learning as I go.

Olivia picks a grape tomato off the vine to snack on it while I work.

We spent time with some of our good friends and family. My uncle came to visit from Alaska, and our good friend Makayla's parents came to visit all the way from Seoul, South Korea, and we had dinner with them. Also, Olivia's cousin, April, spent the night with us for the first time - first for us and first for April! The girls had a blast, and it was adorable to watch them play together.

My mom and her brother. He's gonna love this shot.

Although they spoke no English and we no Korean, it was a lovely evening. It was a honor to share a meal with them.

Olivia Mae Anne at 10 months and April Violet at 2 years

Speaking of friends, Olivia has quite a few now, especially in the boy department! ;) Seems as though many of my friends had boys within a year of Olivia's birth, and they connected this summer as well. Meet Owen, Marco, and Patrick!

Owen's mom, McKenzie, and I went to Pacific together. Isn't he adorable?!

Patrick is about a month and a half older than Olivia, and his mom and I chaperoned a church youth pilgrimage to England together in 2012. Olivia shared Baby with him, and also stole most of his grapes.

Marco's mommy is one of my best friends, and we're secretly hoping he and Olivia get married so we can actually be sisters. That's how it works, right?

I ran a 10K! And I even got a PR! The Butte-to-Butte 10K was what I ran, it was 4th of July, and it was awesome. And we went to the Kozy after, and I ate WAY more than I burned off. Which was also awesome.

I actually AM running here, you just can't tell. I walked 10 steps at the top of the butte, but ran the rest of the way. Not that I was counting, or anything.

Finished!

I got a new camera, which is really fun. And I kind of love it. A lot. Here are a few of my favorite photos I've taken this summer:

Olivia in my great-grandmother's rocking chair. It has been passed to the eldest daughter in our lineage since then.

Hydrangeas from our garden. My favorite flower.

This one makes me laugh every time. Every. Time. Our dog is such a dork.

Lightning over Park City Utah. Messed with the shutter speed to capture it.

Sunrise in Park City.

Olivia watching the ski jumpers in Park City. I love this photo of her. I think it perfectly captures her personality.

Speaking of Park City, we went on vacation! We drove hundreds of miles to get to and from Park City Utah, and had some great adventures. Olivia is NOT a car kid, but she did great, and we made it. Once we got there, it was so nice to be close to family, and have a lot of other grown ups to look after Olivia, who really got going on the walking while we were there! We relaxed, we ate well, had a lot of fun, and wore ourselves down in the best way possible.

Dinner on our last night.

The Bonneville Salt Flats in Nevada. Or, ya know, Olivia in the snow in tank top and shorts. You decide.

Fort Rock, in Oregon, on the way back. The little rocks were way better you guys.

Saw this little guy just hanging by someone's porch at our resort on my way back from shooting the sunrise. He hopped off the moment after I took this, and I didn't see any rabbits that close again.

We went to the Olympic park and watched people doing ski jump trick practice. So awesome.

Not the best place for a photo, and we trusted a stranger to the photo, hence the bad framing, but we hiked up around this area after having the best waffle I've ever had from a snack shack at 7000 feet elevation.

I don't have photos of all the memories I'd like to remember, but I do want to jot down a few other things:

• Working on knitting Olivia's blanket. No, I'm not done. Yes, I'm close. But not that close.
• Olivia's swim lessons and swimming a couple of times this summer. She loves the water now, because of her swim lessons, and I have developed a love of the pool because of her joy in being in the water. Bath time has gotten a lot more fun as a result, too.
• Olivia started daycare, which we call school. So of course, we had to buy her a new lunch box and backpack. Which is adorable.
• Spending time at night with Rob, just talking, like we used to do when we were first together. One night we stayed up chatting until almost midnight. It was so fun.
• Little chunks of time in my classroom. After this past year, I was afraid I'd never want to teach again. I was so tired, and so burnt out from trying to both mother and teach. But as the summer wore on, I stepped back into my classroom and was reminded of the passion I have for teaching. And people have stepped up for me and watched Olivia for an hour here, 2 hours there, so I could go in and do my thing. I'm really excited for school to start.
• Dinners on the porch, and fires in our fire pit. Oregon is an extraordinary place. We spent so much time outside this summer, and I loved it.
• Our early summer trip to Florence and Woahink Lake. We tried to go to the beach, and it was freezing, foggy, and windy. I know what you're thinking: "Florence? In June? No way..." But it's true. So we drove a little bit north and a tiny bit east, and it was sunny and 68. Perfect.
• Getting to know our neighbors. The house next to ours is a rental, but the "kids" (you know, they're like 23...) who live there are really sweet people, and we've shared garden harvests all summer, watched one another's houses during vacation times, and chatted in the driveway. It's nice to have nice neighbors.
• Helping my sister and her boyfriend move into their new apartment. It was nice to help them since they've helped us so often.

So there it is. Our summer in a nutshell. A really big nutshell. I love summer. I'm not quite ready to let it go, but I'm sure we'll make the best of fall and the school year too!

Facebook Breakups

Before I begin, this is not a plea for attention or a popularity contest. It's not about other people. This might be the first time the words, "It's not you, it's me," have actually been true. I am about to delete a lot of people from my Facebook "Friends" list, and it's all about me, not about them.

I get annoyed by the people who post things on Facebook that go something like this: "I'm deleting a bunch of people from my life... can't handle the negativity... Like or Comment if you want to stay friends!" That is superficial, and frankly, immature. I don't do that. In fact, I have already deleted some people prior to writing this post, and guess what? I bet they didn't even notice.

I checked this morning, and I have 337 Facebook Friends, and about 50 suggestions for people I might know. Actually, people I do know. But here's the thing. If I wanted to find them, I would have. On my own. Because they would be my actual friends, so I would have gone looking for them. There are two very personal reasons I'm going to "break up" with some people on facebook, and I'll share them here.

First, I'm a collector hoarder. In all aspects of my life. Clothes, books, shoes, nail polish, cooking spices, backpacks, water bottles, coffee cups, towels, you name it, I have more than I need, and can't seem to get rid of it. Even when I do get rid of it. A couple of weeks ago, I got rid of 5 bags of clothes. In case you missed that, I got rid of Five. Bags. Of. Clothes. And guess what? I still have laundry for days - weeks! - that piles up around my house, somewhere in the abyss between clean and folded.

No one needs that much of anything, and yet here I sit, unfinished laundry at my feet, blogging away. The point is this: I've been trying really hard to declutter my life lately, because I just can't keep up with it all. I can't keep my house even remotely tidy for more than 5 minutes, I can't find anything in my classroom, and all the little things everywhere are distracting and distressing to me now in a way that they either weren't before, or I was able to ignore it better before I had a toddler who wants to only touch all those things.

The second reason is this: as I thought more about it, and looked at my unusually long list of "friends" on Facebook, I realized I'm doing the same thing with relationships. I'm collecting connections to people, whether I need them or not. I actually have so many friends on Facebook, I don't even see everyone's posts on my news feed. Oh boy, if I did, it would take me weeks to read through one day's worth of posts. I can't keep up with it all. Even if I wanted too, I couldn't. (Kind of like my laundry...)

When I was in middle school and early high school, I came home crying almost everyday. Or cried myself to sleep. I wasn't "popular." Did I have friends? Yes, wonderful people, too. But to me (at that time), it apparently wasn't enough that the friends I had were real people who stood by who they were no matter what. I wasn't in the "in" crowd. I got made fun of, a lot, by those people. Those people who I so desperately wanted to be. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe because they were pretty, or always knew the right thing to say, while I felt awkward, nervous, and always thought of the perfect comeback... 3 days later. But if even one of "them" was nice to me, I clung to it, savored it. Tried not to mess it up. No matter how many times they turned right around and ditched me again. It was every time, by the way.

When I went to college, I was certain things would change - we were adults now, right? Eh. Undergrad was pretty lonely for me too, in the friend department. I had a boyfriend - who is now my husband - but I didn't have a "crew," or a "pack" like the other girls in my dorms or classes had, or found, or made. I had one or two good friends going into college, but we went our separate ways eventually. As it turned out, they knew how to have fun like college kids, and I still didn't quite fit with the new people. I was too intense. Too eager. Too ready. Still not cool enough. (Not blaming my friends here - I still know and adore these people, friendships just change, that's a part of life).

But there was Facebook. It was in its infancy in college, and I do have to say, I am glad that it wasn't around when I was in high school - it would have really made life hard. But these people. These people who ignored me, made fun of me, were rude to me... suddenly they wanted to be my friends. And the question became: "How many Facebook friends do you have?" And somehow, I didn't see that it just turned into the same popularity contest from which I had thought I'd been finally freed

And that's how it started. A "friend" here, a "friend" there, "Oh, I remember so-and-so! Wonder what they're up to..." and on and on. Now I have over 300 "friends." I didn't go to my 10 year high school reunion because I was friends with everyone on Facebook. I knew what they were doing with their lives, why did I need to go to a reunion?

Which furthers my point: I'm Facebook friends with a lot of people. Am I happier now? Yes, but not because of my Facebook friend count. It's because I eventually found my niche, in grad school and beyond, at work and in other places. I have groups of friends with whom I spend time and enjoy, and don't worry about being weird, because, well, with my friends, we're all weird. Sorry guys, I outed us. ;)

I love Facebook. I do. And I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm probably on Facebook too much. But I do like to keep up with my friends, near and far, as we've all gotten busier. I like to post too many photos and status updates, and don't really consider how many "likes" or comments I get (anymore. I'd be lying if I said I never cared).

Here's what I don't like, though: seeing posts from people I don't connect with anymore. Maybe once in our lives we did, but now we don't. That's OK. But I'd rather see my elementary school BFF's baby than your new motorcycle, or whatever. I'm sure your bike is fun, but it's not something that we have in common. In fact, we don't really have anything in common except that we attended some class at some level of schooling together, or worked at the same place once for a little while, or have a close mutual friend. Let's just acknowledge that you're a cool person, I think I'm a cool person, but that doesn't mean we have to be friends. "Friends."

So like I said, it's really not you, it's me. I can't keep up with everyone's everything, even though I sometimes think I would like to. People are important to me. Relationships are important to me. But some relationships are more important to me than others. If you don't think that's true for you, you are lying to yourself. Right now, I need to pare down the input from the less connected people in my life and focus on those to whom I am close.

The beauty of Facebook is that if we find we miss each other, we can find one another again. Facebook will probably do it for us, anyway. So for now, goodbye, if I'm deleting you as a Facebook friend. But chances are, this goodbye won't even reach you, because you won't even notice. Which is why I'm doing this in the first place.