Dash is famous for being cute around this house, but I had no idea it had leaked to the outside.

On Costumes.

The following is brought to you courtesy of a very strong pot of coffee. My apologies in advance for any caffeinated rambling. I’m not in control of it.

Dash has been running a fever on and off for the last few days and is now waking up roughly every half hour through the night. Awesome. We think he has some more teeth coming in, resulting in much drool, fever, and need to be in mommy’s arms every moment of every day. Again, awesome.

And the moments he’s not in my arms, he’s walking around the house getting into the cabinets and bumping his head. Yes, that’s right, he’s WALKING. It started last week and it’s come in fits and spurts ever since then. I’ll save you the math- he’s only about 10 months old. Is that early? He seems pretty excited about it. Hmm… maybe that’s what’s causing the fever?

Anyway, fever boy is sleeping it off (for now) so I have a few blessed moments with my coffee and a stack of things to do. Must wrap gifts. Must pack up HappyDashery goods and Christmas gifts for family out west and head out to the Post Office (should be fun, what with this being prime holiday shipping time, yay!). In stark contrast to how I usually procede through the day, I’m going to keep my To Do list to a bare minimum to accommodate the Dashster’s feverish needs. Also, let’s be honest. This was the last of the coffee, and I don’t think I can do anything more than what’s listed above without passing out.

But if by chance I do pass out, I hope I land somewhat near our Christmas tree. I really love it this year. We decided to go with a short tree and put it up on a table out of reach of Dash. Strangely, we’re lacking in tables so it’s on my hope chest. Right at Dash’s level. Good plan, eh?

Anyway, I love it.
And that’s all just to tease you because I can’t seem to get the pictures up right now. Grrr….

Here’s the flickr link to satisfy your curiosity until I can figure out this problem.

Also! My new favorite place to hang out and get my vintage Christmas groove on? Vintage Christmas 1945-1970. You will not be sorry.

And that? And that? I thought so. We’re having chicken tonight and I’m looking forward to the subtle change. Ha.

Dash had his first ever feast of Thanksgiving with us and my parents and he sampled a little of everything. Turkey from a local farm, potatoes, roasted veggies, etc.

Gave a thumbs down for his usual favorite (sweet potato) and a huge, incredibly unexpected thumbs up for a new favorite (brussels sprouts).

That’s right. I said brussels sprouts.

He got a whole one in his mouth before any of us could stop him (we’re not exactly professionals, you know, we do what we can) and instead of spitting it back out or choking to death he calmly chewed it. With his gums. And then he reached into my plate for another. And another.

I tried to tell him that kids don’t like brussels sprouts but he was having none of it. I’m so proud of him. Six sprouts later his hunger was satisfied and we could move on to more important things, like learning to walk. Kid’s amazing. Seriously.

I know, I know. Halloween is over. But I couldn’t pass up sharing the little prince with you all.

It’s that time of the year again. The air is cool, the wind a little crisp. This morning at six, it was still dark out.

This time of the year is always tinged with a bit of sadness. No more summer. No more heat. No more picnics at Two Lights. Bummer.

But as we get closer to Halloween and the first days of wearing sweaters, I start to perk up a bit. It’s apple season! Time to pile in the car and take Dash out for his first orchard excursion. That in itself would have been an easy task, though we wanted to find an organic orchard that was within an hour of Portland. I was surprised at how difficult that turned out to be. There are only two.

Two.

Out of about twenty-one.

That means nineteen orchards within an hour of us are spraying their apples with pesticides. That sucks. But that is not the point of this so I’ll let it go. For now.

We (Neil, Dash, me, and my parents, aka Meme and Bum) drove over to Raven Hill Orchard in East Waterboro on Sunday. (They don’t have a website yet, so no link! But see here for further information about how to find them.)

They’re in their first year of production and it’s a beautiful little spot. Go go go if you’re thinking about going. And if you’re not thinking about going, what’s your problem?
Go! You don’t even have to pick apples. You could just hang out in their coffee shop and laugh at your lame apple picking friends. You know, there’s something for everyone.

Anyway, as it turned out, Dash didn’t really want to pick apples. Go figure. What he elected to do was sleep. Through the entire two hours we were there. But the rest of us had a great time picking a few common varieties and lots of tasty heirloom apples.

Hudson’s Golden Gem, anyone?

Holiday gift spoiler alert!!

This is going to make some mighty fine apple butter for someone’s Christmas toast.