Just a little off the sides, please ...

It's only fitting that we kick off this blog with some headline-worthy news ... Cael had his first haircut this week!  After 11 months we finally decided that our little long-locked kiddo needed a trim.  In many ways it's amazing that we made it this long without an "official" haircut in that he arrived looking like this:

But his sweet little head of hair continued to grow nicely and only needed the occasional nip to offset a few "mullet moments."  I managed to handle these small fixes without bloodshed (for either of us) or hacking off any large chunks of hair.

Cael survived my not-so-professional trims, courtesy of his baby fingernail scissors (they actually worked very well) but we finally reached a point where I was admittedly out of my league.  I hoped to make it to his birthday before going in for the haircut but we figured that 11 months was close enough.

We headed to a little kids' cuts place that had tons of toys (note that green ball that he held onto through most of our visit and that I ended up purchasing as a result), fun cars to sit in, TVs for distraction and a very patient lady named Starr who took great care of Cael.

So Cael settled into the red car (with his long hair and his new ball) ...

... skeptically sat through the spraying and combing ...

... begrudgingly gave in to various distractions ...

... melted down for a few minutes ...

... but recovered nicely once he realized the hard work was done ...

... and once he had a purple balloon in hand.

We love his little haircut and it was a very special "first" for him!  Below are a few of his 11 month pictures that were taken later that day ...

It's hard to belive that our guy is almost one year old but we're just trying to enjoy (and, in some cases, survive) each day as it comes!