We took Max for his first haircut on Saturday. I took a gazillion pictures, no surprise, so be prepared for a picture-heavy blog entry. We went to this cute children’s salon called, appropriately enough, Bella and Max. They even have a cute sign out front that I forgot to take a picture of. Oops. I’ll get one next time. We weren’t too sure how Max would feel about sitting in the chair (actually, an airplane) for the haircut so we stopped en route to get a food bribe. Poor kid doesn’t often get sweets, so we got a piece of Starbucks’ pumpkin bread to use as a distraction. It worked well, when we first put him in the plane he started crying and reaching for me, but as soon as Jeff cracked out the bread, he was happy to sit there and kept signing for more. Here he is getting started, look how much hair he has in the back (he held his Duplo blocks the whole time):

The first snip:

Putting on the cape:

Here he is with a full mouth, beginning to sign “More” since the bread just can’t come fast enough:

Almost done!

Doesn’t he look so much older?

The salon gives a free ticket to ride the train when you purchase a haircut. So after Max got his new ‘do, we walked up the hill to the train, and the three of us went for a ride. Here’s Max and Daddy walking together, I love this.

Waiting to start the ride:

Max loved the ride. Much of it was over gravel, so it was really bumpy, and that was a big hit. Here he is enjoying the view:

In addition to the train, the shopping center has some other really fun things, so we checked it all out. They have birds:

And toys (yep, he’s still holding the Duplos):

And a play house:

Even a rooster named Bob!

Max thought this fountain looked like it would be fun to swim in, here he is attempting to climb into it:

All in all, a very successful morning! In other news, Max has gotten really good at walking just in the last few days. He can now walk much longer stretches, and while he still falls down fairly often, he has mastered getting up from the floor without any assistance. We have some recent video, so I’ll try to get that up with the next blog entry. Max still loves to wave…at us, at the kitties, at the garage door when it closes….the other day he was walking and passed the outlets on the side of our kitchen island. They have the safety plugs but he’s still not allowed to touch them. He stopped, looked at the outlets, gave them a wave, and kept going. So cute! He’s also learned how to get down the stairs by himself on his tummy. He’ll carefully lay down at the top of the stairs, then scoot back until he reaches the first step and slide down to the landing. Then stop, lay down flat on his tummy again on the landing, and repeat. It’s so much fun to see him learning new things all the time.

Wishing everyone a great holiday weekend! We are headed to the zoo with friends on Sunday (Max’s first visit!) so I’m sure I’ll have lots of pictures from that to share soon.