photography

Flower power: Tips to visit Woodburn’s Tulip Festival

catherinemryan

Planning travel to Oregon with kids this spring? You don’t want to miss a visit to the Woodburn Tulip Festival near Portland. Check out the tips to visit the tulip festival with a toddler below—and have fun!

The combination of Peeper’s interest in nature, our daily trips outside and her gift of gab have made for an ever-expanding botanical vocabulary.

While we were in Mexico, she talked about the three distinct varieties of cacti near our hotel. And now that spring is in full swing, she calls out dandelions, daisies and daffodils by their names. We’re still working on the Latin names, though. (Kidding!)

After two visits to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm’s Tulip Fest outside Woodburn, though, she definitely knows tulips. Woodburn Tulip Festival - Ten Thousand Hour Mama Woodburn Tulip Festival - Ten Thousand Hour Mama Woodburn Tulip Festival - Ten Thousand Hour Mama Read more →

Photos capture slipping time

catherinemryan

Peeper was five or six weeks old when I realized that I hadn’t taken a one-month picture of her.

You see them all over Facebook and Pinterest: monthly shots of a baby, often with a button or brightly decorated chalk board marking her age. Look at a year’s worth and you can see a child grow from a slumpy infant to a one-year-old who will hardly sit still long enough for a parent to snap a photo.

I felt guilty that I’d let her month-birthday pass without commemorating it. And since I missed the first one, I figured I couldn’t catch up later. What’s the use of having a “I’m two months old!” photo when you don’t have the one-month-old one?

At the time, I was struggling to do anything besides nurse. Breastfeeding was still an awful, painful, teary, bloody struggle. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t add one more expectation, even if it seems like taking a photo is pretty minor. Because when something as fundamental as feeding your child is really, really hard, staging a photograph, printing out a sign with a big “1 month” on it and taking a picture with an actual camera is also really hard.

So we don’t have a series of photos that shows how Peeper has grown each month. But we have other ways to mark her changes.

Read more →