a big day for hair

Today was a big day for hair at our house.

Italy must have some kind of magical hair-growing additive in their water because all of us started following in Rapunzel's footsteps while we were there -- well, not Dan because he actually got several haircuts at the Italian barber shop.

This morning I confirmed my suspicions: I could in fact make a ponytail with Jackson's hair. There's only room for one ponytail in this house. Mine.
I'd had my eye on this ridiculously cute kids' salon (L'il Klippers) at the Wallingford Center since before he was born - it's all about the pictures, you know.

So, today Jackson got to wear a Winnie the Pooh cape, sit inside of a rocket ship, push buttons, and "drive" while Miss Elizabeth reduced his hippy-in-the-making locks to a more polished little-dude-on-the-rise coiffure. He was remarkably still for each snip of the scissors, only taking breaks from driving his rocket a few times to reach back to touch his hair and say "uh oh!"Miss Elizabeth documented Jackson's first haircut with a certificate of membership into the L'il Klippers Klub. (I promise his fresh-cut locks are still blonde - they look brown here in the photo because they were put in the bag while wet).We celebrated the occasion with lunch and a Vanilla Vanilla cupcake from Trophy Cupcakes next door before we called it a day.Dan and I can't believe how grown up our little dude looks with his new 'do!And because every make-over deserves a before & after shot:

Fall family photos

I like Fall and, as everyone knows, I like photos. I especially like Fall photos of our family. Since we're 3,300 miles away from my favorite photographer, Cory Callahan, we take our own photos. Our trusty tripod coupled with my cat-like agility in leaping from behind the lens to the perfect pose position does an okay job most of the time.

Here's how our afternoon of photos at The Farm at Swans Trail turned out...

Pumpkin Day

Today is Pumpkin Day.
Okay, you're probably thinking to yourself, "What the heck is Pumpkin Day?" Well, that's because it's a holiday that I kind of made up.

If you didn't already know, I lived in Florida before I met and married Dan. The last few years that I lived there, a group of girlfriends and I would pick a day each Fall to meet at Starbucks for Pumpkin Spice lattes and then head to the local pumpkin patch for silly picture taking and general merriment (I just had to throw that word in for fun!). The tradition was fun and it kinda stuck with me so in a desperate attempt to keep it alive I've brought it to my friends here in the Pacific Northwest. Hence, the newly founded Pumpkin Day. A day for all things pumpkin....lighting my pumpkin-scented candles, baking pumpkin bread, watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown...and of course, a trip to the local pumpkin patch after a Pumpkin Spice latte at Starbucks.

I love Pumpkin Day!

Today was a gray and rainy day here in our corner of Washington and that's perfectly acceptable for Pumpkin Day. After a trip to Starbucks (or "Barstucks" as Jackson calls it) for the aforementioned lattes, we caravan-ed up to Snohomish where The Farm at Swans Trail is located. This is our third year of Fall fun at The Farm and the drizzle of rain just made things a little more slick but no less fun.We got to go on a hayride to the pumpkin patch.Jackson was thrilled to see the "punkins!"But he was probably even more thrilled to discover the mud.Here are some more Pumpkin Day photos...I'm already looking forward to next year's Pumpkin Day.