9 Months Old...WHAT?!!

So, our little man turned 9 months old today. I still can't believe it. They always say that time goes by so fast with kids getting older, but who knew it would be this quick. I still have yet to post any photos of our Memorial Day weekend. We went to the Maine Wildlife Park with some friends who have a son a few months older than Rory and the boys had a great time. We posed as a bear and saw all the raptors and big cats and moose and bears. I think Rory is more of a people watcher than an animal watcher, but he did have fun.

And, we managed to get out on Monday for a little hike up Pleasant Mountain. Perfect weather but a bit buggy at the top. We still stayed and had a picnic, and now I feel like a horrible mom because he's got a black fly bite on his neck. So sad to see, although he seems to not even notice it. My bites are driving me nuts so I guess maybe babies don't have the same mental reaction to bug bites as we do as adults. Or maybe he just isn't coordinated enough to scratch at it so he gave up thinking about it. Either way I feel horrible that he got bit, but what are we going to do?! We have his first camping trip coming up June 11th, so we'll get some better bug repellant for that. I can't wait until he sees the tent and the campfire. He's going to love it.

Checking out the animals with Mama B.

Trying to jump out of my arms. I think he wanted the camera.

Roarrrrrr!!! We tried to tell him it would be more intimidating if he took his tiny hands out of the frame, but he wanted to hold on.

A mini hike in Falmouth on Sunday. He loves riding in the Ergo. I love that he holds on to the straps. Super cute.

Family portrait.

Sharing his apple with Cooper at the top of Pleasant Mountain. Cooper LOVES that Rory likes to "share" with him. He's finally seeing the benefits of having this loud little thing around that steals all of his attention from us.

At the top airing out the sweaty man. He sweats like a Pigeon in that backpack carrier.

Tired guy!!!

Belly laughs

Such a happy guy.

My new tricks...

I am finally fast enough to get to Cooper before he runs away from me. I was SO excited to touch his paws...then he ran away.
I can pull myself up to standing all by myself now.
I can eat a whole banana, and then still have a full dinner.
I am really just so proud of myself all the time.

the Full On Crawl

So, about 2 weeks ago, I went to pick Rory up from daycare and he was hanging out on the rug with some toys, laying on his belly. He hopped up onto all fours and crawled right over to me. I couldn't believe it. All this time of thinking he was almost there and now that he's actually crawling in front of me, I was still shocked. Now, he's a full on expert. He is literally all over the place at home and at school. He's starting to pull himself up on things too. He is so proud of himself. I love watching the excitement in his face when he gets somewhere or gets over to something he wanted. Here's a quick clip of him doing the crawl:

Giggle monster