Finally alive Longer than they were in Mommy's tummy!

Today, Gracie and Luke are 9 months old. Their Nana pointed out that they have been out in the world longer than they were in my tummy. We love Nana, but she comes up with the strangest things!

Gracie has been crawling for the past 3 weeks or so. She is very fast! She has this unique way of crawling with one bent knee and one straight leg. Don't laugh! She gets around very fast. If you hold her hands, she will try to walk for you. She uses her tippy-toes, but is starting to get the hang of it. She officially has 3 teeth: the 2 bottom ones and one up on top in the middle. I don't know who she inherited her teeth from, but if the 3 she has are any indication, braces are definitely in her future! Gracie is a talker. She has lots of words that mean something to her, and perhaps, something to Luke. Unfortunately, they have yet to mean anything to her parents. She is an expert at the jumperoo, loves eating Baby Mum Mums and is stuck on stage 2 foods. She hates sippy cups, but will hold her bottle if she is hungry enough.

The best thing about Gracie is her hair! The back is growing pretty slowly, but is shiny and smooth. The hair up top is something else! It is growing straight and diagonally in the air. She looks like she either put her finger in a light socket or she is carefully applying hair gel before we get up in the morning. Either way, her headbands are doing very little to help at this point. Her desperate parents have purchased some leave-in conditioner in hopes that it can tame the crazy hair!

Luke has been growing much faster than Gracie. If the scale is correct, he weighs over 16 lbs. He is a hefty boy and is finally wearing 6 - 9 month clothes. Luckily, some of Daddy's cousins bought him some Chicago Bears' wear so he has plenty to work with! Luke has been off of the steroids for his hemangioma now for 3 months. His nose is pretty swollen and can get pretty purple. It doesn't deter from the amazing cuteness he has going on! He already has a tan and looks ready to jump on a surfboard at any moment. He has 5 teeth! Two on the bottom and 3 new teeth on top. He has a gap between two of them, but they are growing in very straight. He is a great eater and in addition to his Baby Mum Mums, he loves eating Gerber Puffs and Stage 3 foods. Like his sister, he does not like his sippy cup. He would rather have someone hold his bottle for him! We need to work on him. This does not bode well for homework in a few years!

Luke isn't crawling quite yet, but any day now, we'll have 2 seriously mobile babies. Instead of traditional crawling, Luke has his Commando Crawl down to a science. He uses his arms to pull his body along the ground. He is pretty fast, but now where near the speeds his sister can maintain. He has gotten up on all fours several times over the past few days. Hopefully, this is a sign that he will join the Crawling Crew soon.

I wish we could spend time with all of you so that you could see how very different Gracie and Luke are from when they were born. They are so happy and they LOVE each other. Put them on the floor together and they will laugh at each other, hold hands, steal toys, and roll around. It is so amazing to see them interact.

Just think: In 3 short months, we will celebrate their first birthday! How time flies!