9 months old in June

Man, time has flown by and Tate has been home almost two months. A LOT has happened in those two months and he is making fast progress in catching up. When we picked him up in Ethiopia he could barely roll over, could not sit up on his own, did not cry (just made a stressed out scrunched up face), had no teeth, and didn't know his legs were good for anything. In the last two months we've seen massive progress.

He now is crying (or saying "oh gee") when he's sad, has two teeth, can and does eat most anything he's given, crawls, laughs, giggles, waves, blows raspberries with his lips, loves splashing in the water (this he also had to learn), laughs when we make fun of him, and about a million other wonderful things.

In the month of June, his Grandma and Grandpa came down from Wisconsin twice to see him. He loved the extra attention.

The sound that goes with this face is pretty awesome. It's him blowing raspberries and he can and does do it for minutes at a time. It's his favorite thing and he'll challenge anyone to a raspberry blowing duel. He always wins.
The first time I put Tate in water, he just sat there. The first few weeks were filled with experiences like that - everything was new and he was taking it all in. He quickly learned what to do though and now loves the water. He still hasn't learned that trying to crawl in the tub isn't a good idea. This is one of my favorite pictures. He's such a ham.

This is Grandpa Staveness and Ed. I tried to get Tate to smile, but my dad said, "What you don't want any pictures of him crying? Take the picture while he's crying!" I love dad. I also love this picture.
Yeah, so the playground wasn't such a happy time for Tate :-)