Luke at Nine Months

This little cutie pie turned nine months old on Thursday!
And even though most of our pictures of Luke look like this nowadays....
I managed to capture a few more than that the last few days. Luke is always on the move. He is still doing the caterpillar crawl, but is also doing some all-fours crawling as well. Now that he's wearing long pants, I think he might just start realizing that all fours is a faster mode of travel.

Of course, the problem with crawling is that your hands can't carry anything. Got teeth? Problem solved!

Luke now has four teeth-- two on bottom and two on top (that finally came through-- they are huge and must have hurt!). The better to carry balls with!

Luke has surprised me a few times after naptime by being up on his knees... time to lower the crib!
Luke is chewing on everything he can possibly get his hands on. He especially loves these finger puppet people from a soft Little Red Riding Hood book.
He also loves the little wood food disks that decorate Cora and Violet's pizza and birthday cakes in their play kitchen. He'll pop those right in, and do just about anything to get them from where I've hidden them!
Luke will practically jump out of his high chair with excitement when he sees the Cheerio box come out. He also likes bits of bagel and pretty much whatever we're having in addition to his baby food. Sometimes if he's feeling especially playful he'll blow veggie bubbles out at us. What a mess! Luke's preferred method of telling me he is done nursing is to bite... so we're working on that. He nurses best when he is super sleepy at night or first thing in the morning, when he's too tired to be distracted.
Luke has discovered the fun of pushing stools around, opening drawers, and the pleasing sound that banging a drawer shut makes. It must be a great sound, because he also loves to bang toys on the wood floor or wherever else he can make a big loud sound.
Luke loves the musical instrument toys and knows right where they are kept-- under the chair in the family room. He'll head right for the chair, pull the box out, and start playing away. The cymbals and clapper toys are the favorites. He also makes a beeline for anything with wheels... the doll strollers, cars, Cinderella's carriage... it doesn't matter what size, he just loves wheels!
Luke loves attention from all his family members and will usually put up with us playing with him pretty well too.

Luke started saying 'na-na' last week. The girls said it's his first word-- 'No!'. It's fun to hear him experiment with his consonants more. Today we also heard him say 'ma-ma' for the first time too. I'll be waiting to the first purposeful Mama coming in the next few months!

We are so blessed to have Luke in our family!