9 months old already?

     Yes, it's true.  9 glorious months have passed by already and time marches on.  Marcus keeps growing, learning, exploring, and changing and we just adore him.  This week, he got a visit from Granddad and Aunt Liv, and even though it was short, he enjoyed his time with them.  During their visit, he showed them how he crawls all over the place, babbles all types of different sounds, and how he can spit his food out (thanks to Aunt Liv's encouragement - thanks Olivia).  When we hold his hands, he's starting to put one foot in front of the other and walk, but he's still a waaaaaaaaaays off from that (thankfully!).
     After they left, I was sweeping the kitchen floor.  I had to put our bench down, sideways, to block Marcus from crawling into the dirt.  Before I knew it, he had pulled up onto his knees, then as I was watching he STOOD UP!  He got excited and scared at the same time as he realized he was on his own.  He dropped down, onto his butt, then rolled onto his belly, before I picked him up and cheered.  He's now associating me saying, "yeaaaa" with clapping, so that's what we did.  Clapped and rejoiced in his new accomplishment.
     In other news, I'm not sure if he's teething again (top teeth) or possibly has an ear infection.  He's not tugging at his ears, nor does he have a fever (although it's slightly higher than normal, but not at fever-status).  He just has an enormous amount of snot in his nose, and slobber everywhere else (mouth, chin, chest, belly, EVERYWHERE!).  He's been pretty fussy this week, so I look forward to his 9 month visit on Monday to see what Dr. Love says about his recent behavior.  Maybe he's just having sympathy pains for Daddy since he has strep throat.  It's definitely no fun since Mark's fever spiked at 103.6!  He's on an antibiotic and taking fever reducing medicine 3 times a day, however his throat is really giving him a lot of pain.  We'd appreciate your prayers for his prompt healing as he refuses to stop working, but just trudges through it.  He's definitely a man who takes his charge to, "provide for his family," seriously.
     Finally, I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but we think Marcus has said, "Mama" a few times.  It was last Sunday night when we were at church when I think he first said it.  Mark was holding him and I was speaking to a group of ladies.  He was trying to get to me and get my attention and very clearly said, "MAMA!"  Everyone said, "Did he just say Mama???"  He's said it a few more times since then, but I'm not sure if he's associating it with me or not.  Either way, it's sweet music for my heart.  Now if we can just get him on the, "Dada" train...

Since we won't allow him to get the DVDs off the shelf, he now pulls his books down.

"What?"

Grandad's first view of Marcus crawling

Ballers

I let Olivia take a turn at feeding him since she encouraged him to spit it out.

She fed him, and yes, he spit it out on her, too! :)

They were both just smitten with our sweet Marcus Paul

Here's the cake Olivia made for Marcus, "just because"

Side view (didn't she do well!?)

Yes, we let Marcus taste his cake and of course he loved it (so did we!)

 PS - 9 month "birthday" shots will be posted later.  We have a big day today, so we'll take and post them when we can.  Maybe Monday after his 9 month well-visit with Dr. Love.