Luke's 9 Month Session

We spent the weekend of July 24th at the beach with our friends The Nelson's. We so much enjoy our wonderful friends in Troy. That weekend also happened to be the weekend that Luke turned 9 Months old. Candace, Luke and I slipped away Saturday morning and she did this session at Rosemary Beach. She never ceases to amaze me with her incredible talent. Have I mentioned that aside from her mad photography skills she is incredibly beautiful inside and out? Here are just a few of my favorites. The entire session is posted on my facebook page.

11 Months

I'm glad we only have one more month of these pictures.  It is getting extremely hard to get him to sit still.  I had to get Derek's assistance on Sunday morning.  He just wants to stand up in the chair and be a wild man.  I think this is the only usable shot we took. 

Eleven Months:

-He is so close to walking.  I keep waiting for that moment when he just takes off.  He will walk from one piece of furntiture to another and he has gone as many as 12 steps on his own. 
-He is a wild man.  He wants to go, go, go.  It's as if sitting still is not possible for him.
-He is always right under my feet and wants to hold whatever I am holding. 
-He is so ticklish.  It's a little unfair because we are constantly picking on him.
-He has 7 teeth.
-He weighs about 23 lbs.  I know this because I was able to get him to stand still on the scale long enough to register his weight.  It was a miracle.
-He loves to eat.  His favorites are gerber meat sticks, bread, and cheese. We are done with baby food.
-This month he moved up to the creepers and crawlers classroom at church. 
-He is getting better with his sippy cup. He gets the concept but he still doesn't understand that you have to tilt it back to get the water to come out.
-He says "mama" and "baba" and is a jibber jabbering fool.  He is constantly "talking"
-Before nap time we read a book and then I hold him like a baby and sing him a song.  These are some of my very favorite moments.  He usually smiles at me through his paci while I sing.  It's hard to put him down.
-His thing right now is handing you whatever he has.  If you hold out your hand he will put whatever is in his hand in yours.  If he doesn't want to give it up he will just put it in your hand while clinging to it with the death grip. 

I love him and his daddy with every ounce of my being.   



Productive Parenting

A couple of months ago I signed up through a website called Productive Parenting to get daily email ideas for developmental activities to do with Luke. We try to do them each day. One of his favorites was to fill empty water bottles with different items from around the house (toothpicks, macaroni noodles, etc.). He loves those bottles. Anyway, it just so happened that Luke needed a bath this morning because we have been getting in late the past few days (as we will tonight) and so it's been a few days since he's bathed. Also on the agenda was sweeping and mopping the floors. Well I noticed the email idea for today was to fill a shallow container with cornmeal and let him draw in it. It sounded extremely messy and a little advanced for Luke but they know his age when they send these emails. Considering the plan for the morning, I thought it'd be worth a try. After about 30 seconds he picked the bowl up, dumped it and then began drawing all over the floor with the cornmeal. It was definitely a mess but he loved it!!!


It also provided motivation to sweep and mop.

Teeth 4, 5, 6, and 7

Since I posted about Luke's third tooth he has had 4 more sprout. This last one has been hard on both of us. Besides the waking at night and not napping well we have spent the last two days like this:






I'm feeling a break coming soon. Usually when I get to the point where I just don't think I can handle another whiney day, boom, the Lord gives me relief in the form of my sweet, silly, content Luke. Hopefully that's tomorrow ;)

Oh, and happy 11 months to you, my little chunky monkey. I ordered his birthday party invitations today. I can't believe it!! I think we will wait until tomorrow to do 11 month pictures. Just the thought of changing him into that onesie in his current state of drama causes me to need a nap.

Sweet Moments

Luke just woke up from his afternoon nap and I just got done gnawing all over his neck and chubby cheeks. There is just something about that sweet, soft, baby skin after a nap. It's hard to refrain. So I don't. Poor little man. Can you believe he will be 11 months tomorrow?








Yesterday my friend Jennifer's little boy spent the morning with us while she took her oldest three to doctor appointments. Hopefully Camden will want to come back considering Luke tried to poke him in the eyes a few times and definitely stole every toy he tried to play with. Toys, that in his mind, did not exist until today. Anyway, I took a few pictures while they tried to cram as many things as possible into their mouths.



























Oh, and just in case there would ever be any concern that Luke would be jealous if he ever has a little sibling (no, I'm not pregnant), he would not. Not for a split second did he care that momma was holding/loving on another baby. In fact a couple of times he looked at me holding Camden and giggled.

Labor Day Weekend

Our Labor Day weekend was very busy but so very fun.  Friday night we attended the CHHS football game and enjoyed it in a sky box eating pizza with the Carson's.  We spent Saturday morning at our house enjoying family time which was wonderful and very rare these days.  Saturday afternoon we headed to Troy's campus and tailgated with our wonderful friends. 

After the tailgate we headed to the Jones' to watch the Bama game.  We left after church Sunday and headed to Birmingham to spend a few days with Derek's family and The Haubers.  On Labor Day, Luke took his first trip to the zoo.

I'm terrified of birds...this was a room full of them and they were flying around at free will...pretty much my worst fear.  I'm trying not to pass my fears onto Luke.  As you can see, he is confidently leading the way.

  Luke didn't quite make it through the Zoo but we had lots of fun.

Dance, Luke Man, Dance

Straight Ballin'

I've heard someone say before that you should encourage your children in the way that God has bent them. In other words, if Luke desires to play the guitar we will encourage him to use that for God's glory. If he wants to be the next Takeru Kobayashi then we will encourage him to eat hot dogs for God's glory. Although I'm not so sure about this one since our friends little girl choked on a hot dog in front of us one time and Dr. Roy mentioned at his last appointment that they are major choking hazards. All of that to say, we certainly plan on encouraging Luke in the way that the Lord has designed his little personality and passions.


Most people assume (understandably) that Luke will be a baseball player. Derek will even joke that Luke is going to throw 90 from the left side. While it certainly would be nice if Luke's passions fall in line with ours, there is no pressure from us for Luke to play ball.

However....

...he LOVES to play ball.

Roll Tide

We are super duper excited that football season is FINALLY here! We are going to the Troy tailgate and then making our way to the Jones' to watch the Bama game. They will be at the Troy game but we are going to watch it with Kristy's parents...we just love them ;)

Tooth #3

At Luke's 9 month well appointment (over a month ago) Dr. Roy said Luke was teething pretty badly all across the top. He also said we should see those top 4 teeth pop through any day. We haven't seen the top ones yet but another bottom one has cut through. I could tell Luke wasn't feeling too well and then when I was feeding him breakfast I saw a little pearly white peaking through. Poor kid! I tried to get a picture of the new tooth but failed. I got this cute one though:

Bruised

This morning at 7:35 (this would be the time my phone registered a call of panic to Derek) Luke pulled this (small and light) piece of furniture on top of himself:




He screamed and bled.

I attempted to remain calm.

In the end he is fine. See:




Just a few bumps and bruises.

The furniture has been moved.

I will be accepting my mother of the year award in just a few days.

Day at the Park

Luke and I spent the afternoon at the park. He had a blast! I sent Derek a picture of him in the swing and he texted (that's a verb, right?) me back "I can't believe that is our little baby sitting by himself in a swing." I agree, but I'm so excited that Luke is getting to an age where we can go to the park. I'm also excited that the fall weather is moving in and making it bearable outside.

We swang:

We walked:

And then we took pictures:

We had so much fun at Jones Park and plan to spend lots of time there this fall.