Nine Months

Today Luke had his 9-month check-up. He weighs 24lbs 5oz (11.1kg) and is 31" (78.74cm) long! He continues to be in the 95th percentile for both weight and height.

Here's the big boy showing us what boys do.

Portland Blizzard

Portland got about 5 inches of snow this weekend coupled with an arctic windchill. On Sunday we bundled Luke up and took him outside for his first breath of snow.

Here's the little joey hanging out in Mama's Ergo carrier.

Yeah, this whole being outside thing lasted for about 10 minutes. It was cold!

We put up the Christmas tree last Sunday. Luke is used to it now, but at first he was very confused. Why would we bring a tree in the house and put lights on it?

Luke will stick his tongue out once in awhile on his left side.

Luke can pull himself up to stand pretty easily now.

Poor Roosevelt gets grabbed, pinched, and pulled a lot now. He's pretty good about it.

Luke got a second bottom tooth in. You can kind of see them in this picture.

Apples!
Daddy's boy

The Latest in Crawling

Here are videos of Luke's latest crawling style.

From the back.


And the front.

Friends and Family

Here are some more pictures from St. Louis.

Luke with Uncle Mark.

Luke with Uncle Andy.

Luke with his cousins, John, Annie, and Leo.

Luke meeting some of Papa's friends.

Luke in the sink.

And from today, Luke eating an apple.

Fun in STL

Here are some photos from Luke's first visit to St. Louis!

Today we went to The Magic House. Luke had a ton of fun in the water room.

Playing with water makes him very happy.
We had to make a visit to the gift shop shortly after these pictures were taken to buy some dry clothes.

In the mirror room, Luke couldn't stop staring at himselves. At first he kept trying to grab the red ball in the mirror.

Wow, here's what it would have been like if Luke had been quadruplets.

Here he is putting his mouth on the mirror. This freaked him out a little bit so we went on to something else.

In the ball room.

Luke practiced a lot of skills while he was in St. Louis. He got pretty good at playing catch!

And playing the piano.

He liked playing in this bouncy thing . . .

. . . and going outside . . .
. . . and taking naps with Grandma and Miss Kitty.

On Thankgiving, Luke joined his cousins in a group photo with his Great Grandfather Siorek.

Good-bye St. Louis. We'll miss you.

First Tooth!

Can you see it?

Flying to St. Louis

On Saturday we flew from Portland to St. Louis via Salt Lake City. Flying with Luke wasn't too bad, but it could have been easier. He slept 30 minutes at the beginning of the first flight and 30 minutes at the end of the second flight. In between naps it was constant baby wrangling.

Here's a perfect picture of Matt doing some baby wrangling.

Luke enjoyed walking up and down the aisles when we could. (Oh, and he's not wearing pants because he soaked through the first pair and I was trying to preserve the only back-up pair.)
Luckily on the flight from Salt Lake City to St. Louis we had a row to ourselves. Luke enjoyed sitting in the middle seat like a big boy and playing with the food tray.

Here's me trying to get Luke to drink apple juice from a cup. He was more interested in touching the ice.

And here's a video of Luke eating some sweet potato Veggie Puffs. He's new at the food-to-mouth thing, as you can see.

Random Picture Friday

Tomorrow we're flying to St. Louis for Thanksgiving. I don't know when I'll be able to update the blog next so I wanted to update it before we left. We didn't take many pictures this week, so here are some random pictures from the last month that I thought were cute.

Luke can now pull himself into a seated position from laying on his belly!

This laundry basket has breathed new life into old toys. It's been a godsend.

I just love those cheeks and I kiss them as much as I can.
Not sure what he was doing here. He still doesn't have any teeth or any signs of teeth.
Proud over his locomotion skills.

And here's a video.

I love how he only uses his right foot to push himself forward. He has already developed a little red callous on the ball of his right foot!

Hoyt Arboretum

Luke really likes trees and being outside, so today we took him to Hoyt Arboretum, one of the most beautiful places in Portland. Oh, and Luke is 8 months old today!

He Just Started Doing It

Clapping!

This morning Luke clapped his little hands together for the first time. We've been trying to get him to do it for a few days now, and this morning he figured it out. He was so proud of himself, he couldn't stop clapping for about 5 minutes. Of course, he didn't do it on demand later in the morning at Day Care when we asked him to show his teachers.

I've been wanting to start a running feature for awhile now called "He Just Started Doing It," where I post short blurbs on Luke's latest tricks. So, here's the first one.