These Robeez Are Made For Walkin'

For those of you who don't know, Robeez are a brand of baby shoes, and Carmine currently has a very cute pair, with a choo-choo train on them, in which he is now walking ALL OVER the house!

A week ago he was barely taking a few steps here and there, but he is now a full-fledged walker - practically running at times. And I learned the other day that he's quite good at climbing up the stairs, too. Luckily I found him when he had only scaled the first two steps, and I stood there and watched him very quickly climb up the next 5 or 6, without even a moment's hesitation.

So the gates are now locked at all times again. We never took them down, but we hadn't been locking them, so it's time to get back in the habit! And I am going to let him practice on the stairs when I'm there - he doesn't need practice getting up, obviously, but I'm going to show him how to get down - that's the real tricky part.

While I'm on the subject of Carmine, the kid is chowing down! He inhales his food, and is eating a ton of it, and it shows - he's really getting chunky, with tons of little fat rolls on his legs - I love it : )  His favorites are bananas, fig cereal bars from Trader Joe's, pear, cheese, baby Goldfish, Cheerios, and the Target brand fruit and veggie puffs for babies. I've tried bread in various forms - plain toast, toast with jam, toast with butter, and toast with cheese - and he refuses to eat it. But he tried some roasted sweet potatoes tonight and liked those, so thats another good veggie for him to have.

We're still giving him some pureed stuff, but not at every meal, which is kind of nice, because it means I don't have to make quite as much of it. And not having to spoon-feed him all his meals makes things a little easier, too.

I'd kind of forgotten how much fun this age is, but we are all having so much fun with this little boy in the house. He makes the most hilarious noises and crazy expressions on his face, and loves nothing more than to laugh and play with all of us. He's just such a joy, and I can't wait to see more and more of his personality develop, because so far, he seems to be quite a character.

Gabe and Dante are doing great, too. Now that the calendar is well into the month of December, it's all Christmas, all the time. We have three countdown methods - first there's the Advent calendars I got at Trader Joe's for 99 cents each - a little chocolate behind each window - yum!  We also made a paper chain that we take one link off of each night, and when we went to see Santa at the mall, he gave them a special countdown to Christmas calendar, and they mark an X on each day.

We're in the swing of things with all our Christmas festivities, too - the tree lighting at the beach was this past weekend, complete with fireworks (which Carmine LOVED - he was totally enthralled!), and I also took Gabe and Dante to the open house at the local candy store - we got to see them making candy canes and different chocolate candies, and got to sample some, too!

And each Sunday after church, they're having rehearsal for the Christmas pageant, which is in two weeks. Dante's still on the fence about whether or not he wants to be in it. He initially said he wanted to be an animal, but now he's saying he doesn't want to be in it at all. We're trying to convince him to do it, not because I want to force him into anything, but because I have a very strong suspicion that once the day of the pageant arrives and he sees Gabe up there in his costume, he's going to regret that he isn't up there, too. But I'm certainly not going to force him, so we'll just see what he says this week.

This Sunday is the dress rehearsal and pizza party, so that'll be when he has to make a fnal decision. Gabe is going to be an angel, and he has one line to say. He's really enjoying the whole thing, and I can't wait for the day of the pageant - it's going to be so adorable!

We'll get our tree this weekend, and I put all the other decorations up last week. I was going to wait and do it this week, but both Gabe and Dante had Friday off from school, and I thought it would be fun to do it when they were both home, and I was right. They love seeing me put everything out, and they're so excited to go get the tree.

Even though we're in full-on Christmas mode now, Dante has still been talking a bit about stuff he learned in school last month, and I realized the other day that instead of saying "Native Americans," he's been saying "made of Americans." He has some of the most adorable, and funniest, mispronunciations. He still calls it the "diming room," and loves to play "fribsee," and wears his "babing suit" to the beach.

He's such a cute little kid, and I'm trying to soak up every minute of it, because I know that soon enough he's going to be a big kid like Gabe, with no trace of baby left. They're growing up so incredibly fast, it makes my head spin.

Comments

[Wes]

Nothing quite as exciting as Christmas with a bunch of chillians at home :-)

[Taryn]

Loved that video of Carmine with the jingle bell shoes! :)