THIS MONTH IN PHOTOS || AUGUST

The Oregon zoo, fun with cousin Winslow, escaping the heat on the Columbia, our 3 year anniversary trip to Gearhart, and sister love <3.

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A photo posted by Kevlyn Baker (@kevlynbaker) on Jul 29, 2016 at 7:37pm PDT

A photo posted by Kevlyn Baker (@kevlynbaker) on Jul 29, 2016 at 7:42pm PDT

A photo posted by Kevlyn Baker (@kevlynbaker) on Aug 3, 2016 at 1:58pm PDT

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A photo posted by Kevlyn Baker (@kevlynbaker) on Aug 8, 2016 at 5:39pm PDT

A photo posted by Kevlyn Baker (@kevlynbaker) on Aug 10, 2016 at 3:31pm PDT

A photo posted by Kevlyn Baker (@kevlynbaker) on Aug 20, 2016 at 9:17am PDT

xoxo
Kevlyn

gypsy jazz

On Thursday, Karl and I decided to go on a little adventure to a new restaurant in our neighborhood. He had met a new friend on the MAX while going to work with A and the guy said he was in a band that was playing there that night. We had never been to the Chameleon Restaurant & Bar before, so we thought it would be fun to try it out. It was more of a date night restaurant, so the meal was $$$, but the food was good and luckily A was well behaved (although she did try to eat the table a few times).

 The restaurant was hard to classify, at first it looked like a Thai place, but then it morphed into Italian. For example, for appetizers I had a Caprese salad and Karl had bacon wrapped dates, but egg rolls and chicken satay were also an option. Chicken curry and cilantro lime salmon for dinner, with handmade cheesecake for dessert. The food was great, but I'm not entirely sure it was worth the price. Portland is funny like that; you can get a $20 gourmet meal at a dive, whereas expensive date night restaurants offer good but 'vanilla' food by comparison.

But the music was fantastic! (Karl and I are kind of going through a big jazz phase). If we had got a babysitter we would have definitely stayed past 7:30.

You can check them out on Facebook, Le Combo Diabolique.

xoxo

K

Birth Day

I'm feeling the love on my birthday today :)

But I'd thought I'd share a story of another birthday today, the story of Andromeda's Birth Day!

June 6th, 2014 I started to have a bit of sharp cervical pain, like someone was poking a needle into me down there, and chalked it up to my body preparing for birth as my due date was only three days away. That day I also got acupuncture to help my body naturally progress. I really enjoyed it and recommend it to any expecting mom. Although, Karl did not help my zen vibes as it was a hot day and he ran the car battery all the way down by blasting the air conditioner while I was at my appointment! Luckily his mom came to our rescue and soothed the ire of a very pregnant woman.

After my work baby shower around 37 weeks.

Sunday morning, June 8th, I started having light contractions, strong enough to feel a bit of pain, noticeable, but not really as bad as my normal period cramps but definitely timeable. As I went about my day they subsided, I would get a contraction about every 30 minutes to an hour for about 30-45 seconds. This continued over the next few days. Looking back I was probably in this "early" labor stage of light contractions for about a total of 5 days.

On Monday morning, June 9th (my due date), I lost my mucus plug when I got up that morning. At my 40 week appointment at the OB, I was only 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced. No change from before but I was mentally ready to be about a week late anyway.  Everyday I would try to walk a mile at least once or twice, not getting much sleep at all because the light contractions, hip pain, and bladder would wake me up. My due date passed but I was enjoying spending time at home with Karl for our last few days alone. 

The last picture taken of me pregnant! This was before we went to the Portland Opera.

June 10th we came home from his parents after dinner and were sitting on the couch when I felt a pop in my lower abdomen at around 9:45 pm. I immediately though my water broke and yelled to Karl to grab a towel. Sure enough, when I stood up a gush of fluid came out. I called my doula/montrice Jocelyn and she agreed, saying she'd head over to the house to check and monitor baby in a bit. I was excited and started to get everything ready for the hospital, however by the time Jocelyn arrived 20 minutes later I had had at least 3 or 4 painful contractions I couldn't walk through. She confirmed it was my water and listened to babies heartbeat, but even just sitting still waiting for her to check became really uncomfortable. We timed the contractions and they were 5 minutes apart for about a minute. I got in the shower briefly but soon realized it was time to GO. Karl called Sunnyside as we got into the car at around 10:45 pm. I had planned to labor as long as possible at home, but I progressed so fast it wasn't for long!

At labor & delivery I couldn't even walk 10 feet from the car to the door without having a contraction, so they wheelchaired me in to triage. I was so focused on getting through contractions that I barely remember much besides blindly signing papers! Couldn't get the hospital gown on without having one or two contractions from the bathroom to the bed. My contractions were 3 to 1 minute apart at this point, definitely very active labor. Sometimes I wouldn't even get a break between them. I don't think they even checked my cervix! Karl called my mom to come in to the hospital. I was able to get a room with the deep tub and we moved there.

I labored in the tub for an hour or two before I started getting overheated and my face was tingling so I moved to the bed. I labored there in almost a reclined sitting position as I worked through contractions. I thought I was being loud with vocalization, but apparently they couldn't even tell when I was having a contraction! My doula suggested other positions like standing and knees but those were just too painful. My hormones hadn't had enough time to catch up with how fast and strong the contractions were. I ended up getting an IV because I kept throwing up (at random, never felt nauseous) and couldn't even keep water down. I did have continuous monitoring (luckily with telemetry) but I think that was because my contractions were so close together or because my water had broken. But according to babies heart rate she barely noticed I was in labor. 

At about 6 am June 11th, I had the "I don't think I can do this anymore" feeling so I asked that they check my cervix. I was 8 cm! That really helped me, whatever I was doing was working :) By around 7 ish I was complete but still didn't feel the strong urge to push, although mentally I was ready to push that baby out! I started to do self directed pushing but it wasn't as effective as it needed to be so the midwife offered her help. I pushed on the toilet with her really directing me, it was hard to push past the pain and that wall of pressure. We got baby almost all the way through the birth canal and moved back to the bed. That was a fun walk! With my mom and Karl holding my legs and supporting me Andromeda Wren was born at 9:45 AM.

Andromeda Wren Baker was 8 lbs 14 oz and 22 inches long. Her head was 14 centimeters (no wonder pushing was so hard!). My 12 hour labor was totally unmediated and I was so happy with the whole experience. We did skin to skin immediately and she barely fussed and was super alert. I tore in a few places but none were too bad, although my tailbone was a bit bruised. I would go through the whole thing over again in a heartbeat. 
Her daddy and I love her so much!

xoxo 

K

NW Flight - Admiring the beauty

Some pictures of my flight to Grand Coulee/Electric City on Tuesday. It was a beautiful day despite the stagnant air on the ground, in fact, it made it more beautiful.

Mt. Rainer

Mt. St. Helens

Downtown Portland through the haze

The views almost made up for the fact that I nearly had a panic attack before the flight upon realizing that I had not yet finished getting my travel approved. Thankfully the pilots let me on the plane.

K

McMenamins Passport - Crystal Ballroom

Karl and I bought the McMenamins Passport on a whim before I got pregnant. If you live in the Portland Area, check in out, it's pretty cool. Basically you pay $25 for a passport booklet and win prizes as you fill it up with stamps from different McMenamins locations around Oregon (and Washington!). Since giving birth to A, the passports have been sitting by the wayside for awhile. But last night we finally had an opportunity to start them!

I got tickets to see Phantogram at the Crystal Ballroom, so on our way we made stops to get our stamps for the Crystal page. The first was the Crystal Hotel. We had to find a picture on the first 3 floors of the hotel that matched the clue given, something about a jester on new years. This is what we found:

And it was correct! So we got our stamp and pressed on to Al's Den and the Ringler's Annex. These were both unique slightly hidden locations, so it was really fun to discover them for the first time. Al's Den is like a secret copper bar, basement, live music venue with awesome mosaics.

Then it was on to the Crystal Ballroom, where we got stamps for going to the concert, Lola's room, and the Ringlers Pub located on the ground floor of the venue.

The concert was awesome! Even though we could barely keep our eyes open... new parent problems. If you haven't heard of Phantogram:



They are fantastic live!

Here is our completed passport page:

And our "Crystal Surprise":

Pint glasses of our favorite ales! 

Karl & I had a lot of fun and can't wait to go on future adventures to fill out the rest of the pages.

xoxo

Kevlyn

SXSW 2012

For those who don't know what SXSW is, let me break it down for you. South by Southwest (SXSW), affectionately called "South By" for those in the know, is a 3 week conference held in March located in Austin, TX every year. Part film festival, part tech interactive, and a lot music, it's the conference that launched the likes of Twitter and Tumblr and is the gig to play if you want your band to "make it" in the industry.

We first attended SXSW in 2011, almost by accident, when Karl's parents invited us to go to Austin last year. We had music wristbands, which got us second priority into the venue's, waited in some lines, saw some amazing bands, and didn't really know what was going on.

One of the main venues, Stubb's. Barbecue by day, concert by night.

But this year, oh yes, we understood what was going on. Badges purchased, plane tickets for the right month (a different story), and the right people on twitter followed, we headed for Austin in March. Karl left first in order to attend the Film and Interactive portion for his work, and a week later I came down for the party.

I made quite a comprehensive schedule in Excel with a plan A, B, C, D, and sometimes E and I RSVP'd to EVERYTHING. This worked out quite well in the receiving free stuff and booze department.

Example of a day schedule (@ the Paste Party)

What to expect? LOTS OF DRINKING & a hipster level that's over 9000. I mean, really, who wears a metallic bikini top and a zebra print jumpsuit normally?

Here is a list of bands we ended up seeing:

Tuesday:
Neon Hitch
Outasight
Theopolis London
Santigold
Chuckie

Santigold at La Zona Rosa

Wednesday:
Sugar & the Hi Lows
Cavemen
Tennis

Ben Kweller
Friends
Pond
Miike Snow

Geek Art found at the Fader Fort. This made me smile :)

Thursday:
Yelle
Tycho
Girls
Gary Clark Jr.
Fiona Apple

A really bad picture of Fiona Apple at Stubbs

Fresh Millons
Shiny Toy Guns
Dev

Art Showdown before the Shiny Toy Guns show.

Friday:
Two Gallants

Me with a Android at the Google Rooftop Party. Don't hate on the shoes, you'd wear them too if you were standing for 12 hours for 5 days straight.

Grimes

Grimes - <3 her

Jimmy Cliff
Talib Kweli & special guests
The Shins

The Shins - Simple Song

Ned Sheeran
Of Monsters and Men
Avalanche King

Saturday:
Blouse
SBTRKT

SBTRKT - Wildfire

Ceremony
Sleigh Bells

Bad Picture - But Sleigh Bells rocked SO HARD OMG. There set was literally a wall of speakers :D

Nas

LEGIT DJ BATTLE!

Nas - New York State of Mind

Oops, I forgot to use my badge anywhere near the convention center >.>
So basically the badge price was totally worth it if you count $25 per 3 bands!

Now for my ratings of the SXSW 2012 as a whole:

Best show experience:
Santigold/Sleigh Bells

Best musical act:
Grimes/Sleigh Bells

Best free drink:
Gin & tonics at the Paste Party/Vodka and Monster Ice Tea Lemonade at the Hype Hotel

MMM, yummy Gin & Tonics

Best free food:
Doritos Loco taco at the Hype Hotel

Best Idea Ever? Most Likely.

Best celebrity siting:
Rooney Mara filming outside Stubbs

Rooney Mara - TOTAL STALKER PIC

Look forward to going next year if it happens to be in the cards!

Last Day Pic <3

lookout point: mt. hood hike