Poem

Found today on the interwebs and too lovely not to share:

I need a word

a brand new word

nobody ever heard

I need a word

that can express

You are the dearest

on the earth

{by Monique and Hans Hagen}

That's sweet - makes the run of the mill days a little less so :)

Tuesday

baby photo shoot

Story Time

Morgan and Yew

Olive's view from her perch on the floor

Goofy girl making unintentionally funny faces

Knitting project almost done - Beautiful new fall hat!

Our day was slow.. nothing eventful happened, it was mostly quiet around here - slow-paced late summer day i guess. Oh! i almost forgot - i made reservations for Bryan and I at the Searose - a tiny B & B in Oceanside, Oregon where we stayed during our honeymoon. We'll be staying there in December for two nights while Grandma and Grandpa Fine babysit - I am really, really really looking forward to this. it won't be an exaggeration that i'll be counting down to December 21st starting today! Life will speed up shortly - later this week I'll start watching the little girl across the street every afternoon until her parents get home, and my two Art Appreciation classes will be starting, so I'll get to slowly test my feet at being a stay-at-home mom who works from home as well. I'm sure it will be great - I feel lucky that i get to do this, though I'm sure I'll be a lot more on task grading papers than I have in the past! In the meantime, fall can't come fast enough, and winter too!

What is everyone else up to this Tuesday afternoon?

Bry and Olive 1980 and 2010

like father, like daughter...

Here's Olive enjoying her bath last night with her dad and doggies. We're unpacked and unloaded, and are back into our routine, just in time for things to change again! I've really been enjoying these days with her: staying inside and playing on our bed, running errands together, hearing her tiny voice babble away at the ceiling fan - i feel like i could listen to her forever.

More and more I feel like I'm getting a better hang of all of this - again, i don't want to jinx myself, or seem too self confident (i'm anything but!), but I'm no longer terrified of night time, or feel quite so "in the trenches" to borrow a very apt phrase from a friend. it IS interesting to learn how to do things with a baby, and Im sure it will only get more so as she grows into toddler-hood and older, but for now we take it day by day and it works for us. I've got no problem being a lazy bones sometimes, and feel blessed that i get the luxury of being at home with her and not having too fixed of a schedule to maintain.

Speaking of staying home, I've decided to try an experiment my friend did awhile ago, where she went an entire year without buying any clothes or extraneous items for herself. i think it was a challenge not just out of respect for her family's' budget, but also to simplify and try not to add a bunch of "stuff" that she didn't need. I'm inspired by her, and am making this my goal as well - September 2010 - September 2011 I'll be making due with the wealth of clothes and things that I have already. I'm looking forward to this - I think it will help make me more aware of what I have, what I use, and how I can make do with less! My one caveat will be supplies like fabric or yarn for sewing/knitting projects, but my promise to myself is to finish them, or die trying...

Visiting Washington and Oregon was so nice - seeing family, passing babies back and forth, smelling smelling smelling the northwest, and loving cold ocean breezes. I can't think of a better way to spend July. I'm tempted to say that it will have to become a tradition, if we can manage it :) Hanging out with Toledo family and my "cousins-in law" for a week every year is something i could get used to! Won't it be fun to watch our daughters grow up and have summer adventures together?!

Settling Back In

Back from a long and wonderful trip to the West Coast - got to visit wonderful family and kindred spirits in both Oregon and Washington. At the moment, I'm finishing getting unpacked, catching up on emails and getting used to the heat again after being in cool for a while. So glad and thankful that I got a chance to see everyone and hold babies, and walk Greenlake multiple times.