MINE!

This blog is entitled ‘Mine” because that’s the most frequently heard word in our house. Both Gustav and Callie say it approximately every other word, with the occasional “Mine! Mine! Mmiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeee!!!” screamed by Gustav when he’s HAD IT with his sister.

I know it’s been so long since I’ve blogged. I’m not going to make excuses; I’m just going to do my best to let you know what’s been going on here lately. I’ve actually been taking notes whenever the kids do something interesting or funny, so hopefully I’ll be able to recover J

I’ll start with Gustav, because as you know at this age they change and grow so much, it’s amazing! He started walking ‘well’ around November 15th and hasn’t stopped since! He’s the cutest boy in the WORLD! He’s so smart! I can’t possibly write about his true personality, but here are a few examples:
- Perhaps my favorite memory of Gustav will always be the day I went to pick him up from the nursery at the BAC and he FINALLY said “Mamma! Mamma!” (instead of Dadda!) and came running to me. He’s done that every since J It melts my heart.
- When he’s finished eating, he gives his plate to Callie and she tells me “Gustav’s finished!! Give him something else!” – He’s ALWAYS hungry and he eats more than most adults! For some reason, he hovers around 5th percentile for weight. It must be a hollow leg!
- He is a lot more cautious than a certain sister of his. It makes my life a little easier, because then I only have 6 heart attacks a day.
- Gustav LOVES shoes. Perhaps it’s because I told everyone that I wouldn’t buy him shoes until he learned to walk. However, I actually bought him shoes soon before he started walking and he’s always been a fan of them! He takes after his Dad who insists on wearing shoes all the time – even in the house. As soon as I get him dressed in the morning he requests his “shoo!”
- He LOVES bananas! Whenever I’m cutting something on the cutting board he says “nanna! nanna!” over and over!
- OH! This one’s good! When I go get him from his crib in the morning, I open the door and he says “Morning!” It’s so cute! I used to say “good morning” when I walked in there and he soon took over my jobJ
- He’s starting to repeat everything and if you say ‘1’ he’ll say ‘tooo,’ tree…’
- He FINALLY resigned himself to sign language and politely says ‘more, please’ and that’s about it because I was starting to give up on the whole sign language thing and didn’t teach him any more than that!

It’s time to move on to Callie. What a little FIREBALL! That child has more energy than she knows what to do with. She has become quite the dancer and constantly impresses anyone who watches her pirouette over and over without getting dizzy – even I can’t do that! I’ll try to summarize some of Callie’s most notable um, achievements?:
- Up until this week, we have had a stretch of gorgeous weather (I’m talking 70 degrees!) so we’ve been playing outside a lot. One of Callie’s favorite things to make me or Gus do is draw Cinderella in chalk on the front walkway. She hands us chalk and says “Draw Cinderella!” and she won’t let us rest until we’ve drawn her necklace, shoes etc!
- She still falls ALL THE TIME! If she’s not walking into something, she’s falling or tripping over something else (except when she’s dancing.)
- She speaks exceptionally well for her age (and always has), but sometimes she pronounces something so funny, it’s not worth correcting. When she wanted the volume turned up she would say “turn it loudy” or conversely “it’s too loudy” (instead of louder.) It was so cute that we didn’t correct it, but much to our dismay, she soon started pronouncing it correctly.
- As you already know, Callie loves ballet and loves to dance. She even sleeps with her ballet shoes on (when I let her)…
- She moved into a big, big girl bed – we converted her crib into a full size bed (the headboard is the back of her crib and the footboard was the front.) It wasn’t too much of a transition since she was sleeping in basically a toddler bed, but she was really excited. We also painted her room – the first one in the house. It looks so good that I want to paint all the other rooms. I’ll post some pictures.
- Even though Callie’s been wanting to sleep with a Barbie doll or Ariel lately (I only allow her to sleep with baby, piglet and ONE new doll), when I go in to check on her she always has the tried and true PIGLET in her arms while she’s sound asleep. Now, that’s true love.

I could go on and on about the two of them, but you really need to see it for yourself. I’ll post a bunch of pictures – hopefully they’ll show up below this. Nonna and Nonno came to visit us for Christmas and we had a blast! There were so many presents and it was so much fun. The pictures will hopefully tell the story.

Other than that, I had a ballet performance (“Visions of Sugar Plums”) on December 16th with RBT. It went, um, not so well. Not terrible, but it’s a long story. I continue to take ballet about twice a week. Gus is balancing fishing and mountain biking pretty nicely. Ever since we stocked our creek with rainbow trout– yeah, another blog that got deleted- he hasn’t had to go far to fish (me either, it’s been FUN!) We’re still hoping for snow this winter and we still love living in Roanoke. Please enjoy the menagerie of pictures I’m about to post J Adios!