9 months!

This weekend was faaaantastic.  It was full of naps, super productive house work, and soaking up my sweet 9 MONTH OLD.  Duke is changing by the second these days so I want to make note of some of it here so I will always remember this stage of discovery, mama snuggles, and double chins. 

We started off Duke's 9 month birthday with a family walk downtown.  We live right on main street and the weather was finally only in the 80s so we were able to go on a nice walk and not sweat to death.  Duke totally digs sitting in the stroller like a big kid instead of being in his car seat.  See also: he's a giant.

In between lots of naps for this growing boy, we played, read books, mowed the lawn, did a million loads of laundry and took some pretty stinking cute pictures with a 9 month tie on.

This monkey plays a recording of Duke's heartbeat from when I was about 16 weeks pregnant.  It is one of my absolute favorite things and Duke loves snuggling with it. 

Duke has started waving and it's adorable! It's pretty random right now, and when I try to do it back he just smiles, but it's one of the many things he's learning these days and I just love it!  In other, far more terrifying news, he is pulling himself up to standing all by himself!  Somebody help me.  Pulling himself up on anything and everything in site is the new name of the game for this boy so we were forced to lower his crib practically to the floor so he doesn't flip out of it.  He's a little top heavy, if you haven't noticed.

The other day, I told Dennis that I truly always knew I wanted to be a mama, I've always been excited about having kids and picturing what life would be like, but I literally never could've imagined how happy I would be.  Of course there are challenging moments, but for the most part, life with this boy is full of so many giggles, smiles, and snuggles.  He makes us laugh with his ridiculously funny facial expressions...the newest being the totally fake sad face and crinkle nose smile.  He loves to bury his face into me and pretty much tries to kiss or bite my arms 5103851 times a day.  Nursing is still going really well for us although all of those teeth are starting to make things tricky.  He's usually fine, but just recently started biting a little bit and I hope that phase passes quickly.  We are still impatiently waiting for a "mama" or a "dada" to come out of that cute mouth, but so far just lots of adorable gibberish. 

Duke loves the water, is slowly starting to get the hang of chewing little bits of food, loves to read books, does pretty great on road trips, and is going to be starting day care in less than 2 weeks!  Dennis and I feel so thankful we've been able to be at home with  him for so long {he's never been sick!} but we also know that he will do great and love playing with all the other kids.  We did a walk through of the daycare on Saturday and feel really comfortable with our decision.  Keep us in your prayers that this new transition goes well for all of us!

In other weekend news, we painted these shelves on Saturday {literally the only productive thing that happened on Saturday} to match the stripe we painted above Duke's crib and I'm so happy with how they turned out.  We stacked up some of his books and added some adorable hand-painted blocks that I got at my baby shower.  Also, by we, I totally mean Dennis.  He hung and decorated these shelves like a champ.  If you're looking for a professional shelf decorator, you can go ahead and hire him, but you've got to hurry because he starts a job on August 3rd! Woohoo!