My Little Outdoorsman

There's baby Luke sitting on a blanket outside yesterday morning. I call Luke my little outdoorsman because he absolutely loves being outside. We go outside every morning before I go to work and sit in the rocking chair and read. Every morning we read his favorite book, I Love You Through and Through. He loves looking at the boy and bear in the book and I love starting his day off by telling him how much I love him. On the weekends, we often spend most of the day outdoors - reading on the porch, playing on a blanket in the yard, or taking wagon rides in the backyard. I even feed him outside sometimes. I'm so glad that Luke loves the outdoors - I'm hoping this will mean that he will be an active child, not a "sit by the TV" kid. We rarely have the TV on in our house - when we do play inside, I usually turn on the radio to Christian music or I play Luke's nursery rhymes or Bible songs. It is very important to me that Luke not get dependent on watching too much TV. :)

Luke is really beginning to blossom - it seems like he does something new everyday. Last Sunday, he waved "bye-bye" to his mamaw after lunch. I haven't been able to get him to do it again yet, but we are still working on it. He recognizes several words - flowers, birds, dogs, mama, dada, truck - when you say these words, he will look towards these things. It's amazing to me how much he understands even though he can't say all the words yet. I guess the reading everyday and the talking and singing to him constantly is paying off. When I read to him and he sees a character in the book smiling, he will start to smile. On a page where the boy is taking a bubble bath, he will take one finger and point to the bubbles. I love how he really sits and pays attention to the pictures - I am thinking this is going to turn into a love of reading one day.

Luke is now able to eat the little gerber finger food puffs on his own. He can actually grab them one at a time and put them in his mouth. He is not effecient enough to make a meal out of them yet, I just use these as an end of meal treat while I get dinner cleaned up.

Luke now has 4 teeth completely through - 2 on bottom and 2 on top. He is crawling all over the place. He will follow me from room to room now. Our house stays in disarray with toys all over the place and I don't even care. :)

Watching this little man grow and develop is the most amazing thing in the world - can't you tell I'm loving every minute of it? :)

One quick random thought - I've noticed that my fellow blogging friends are slowing disappearing - I think I'm losing them to Facebook. I really miss these fellow bloggers. I'm not on facebook and never will be so the blogging was how I kept up with them. I hope that all of my visitors continue to visit this blog to get Bumgarner family updates. I choose to blog because I print and save these blogs as my journal. Matter of fact, I just started working on putting together Luke's baby book and this blog has helped me remember every milestone. So...to all you Facebookers...every thought about blogging??? I challenge you to think about it....

Here are some recent pictures of Luke...







Luke loves to "hide" under his jumparoo.

See those teeth???

Look at that sweet smile!

Luke and Papaw Kim!!!

Memaw feeding Luke dinner!! Memaws can make dinner time so much fun!!

Aunt Lexie is helping out too!

Playing in the toy basket...

The living room during Luke's playtime...

There he goes....

This bowl makes a very loud noise when blocks go in and out of it or when it is banged against the floor - for this reason, it is one of Luke's favorite toys...

Luke helping me find coupons...thank goodness the paci was in or this couldn't have happened...no, no to paper in the mouth...

That's all folks...thanks for visiting and don't forget to come back soon!! Luke will be 9 months old on Tuesday. He goes to the doctor on September 28th for his 9 month check up...I hope to post very soon after this visit with his recent stats!

Enjoy this beautiful Sunday! It's gorgeous...after Luke's nap, we look forward to the outdoors...

Messy Faced Crawler

Luke's says - "Hi, welcome to our blog!" :) Isn't he cute?

My little dude is now officially a crawler. A slow one right now, but he is crawling. He crawls in a really weird way...he crawls using one knee and on the other leg he uses his foot. Check out the video of this new accomplishment at the bottom of this blog.

I added the messy faced adjective because when you see some of the pictures below, you will notice Luke's messy face. In a few pictures, you will see his orange stained face after eating a jar of macaroni and cheese...yummy! There are also a few pictures of one of Luke's favorite treats - pudding. I sometimes eat a small cup of pudding as my dessert and after I'm done, I will let Luke lick the small amount of chocolate left over in the pudding cup. He loves this but often ends up quite messy! He usually has pudding on his legs, arms, hair, etc...bathtime usually follows close after the pudding is all gone! :)

It is impossible to get pictures of right now, but Luke also has two very visible, very sharp (he, he) teeth on the bottom and one that just cut through on the top. The top tooth cutting through has seemed to bother him more than the others - he has had a runny nose and has been extra whiney the last few days and the only explanation I can think of is the teeth.

It's such a blessing to watch him grow and develop as he should...I'm enjoying every second of this beautiful journey! I hope you enjoy the latest Lukester pics...thanks for visiting! :)

Did you just have the urge to pinch those fat cheeks???