holy disappearing year batman! babies can take twelve long months, put'em in a top hat, couple waves of the wand, and POOF! they're gone. our our little x-man is no exception to that rule.

thank goodness for cameras. :)

so what do we have at the end of this year? well, I'll tell you: a 18lb., dimple cheeked, lady-killer that babbles in italian and can crawl faster than a louisiana greyhound. can he walk yet you ask? no madams and sirs, he cannot. but, in his own words, "gah-doo-shya-dooh!" which roughly translates into, "who has time for walkin'?!" and he's right – ain't a baby within 20 clicks that can walk as fast as this little speedster can crawl.

weren't a whole lot of milestones met this last three months on account of the fact that x was too busy refining his crawling and talking skills. although he has taken to walking with the aid of a wall, walker, mama, papa and/or piece of furniture. other little milestones met were standing on his own (for only a few seconds), climbing Anything (moms, couches, security gates, refrigerator shelves, etc...), and imitating adult words as well. for example, zia issabella said, "Bravo!" one night and he came back with, "bah-voh!" another time, while watching baby mozart on DVD he exclaimed, "dah-goh!" when the dragon-puppet came on the screen. for all of you non-italian speakers, the italian word for dragon is drago. little smarty, huh? of course, we were hoping his first word would be something more along the lines of proletariat, or multilateral — but we all know that disappointment has more to do with expectations than actual achievement. dah-goh is just fine with us.

lots of family visits in the past few months. mama and x flew out to hawaii (kona) for x's first big trip, where they got to see auntie noella, uncle ricky, grammie J, auntie mitzi, uncle dave, the twins, and grandpa and grandma brown. auntie linda made it out from new york city to catch the x-man's first birthday. zia isabella flew in from italy, and boy was xavier happy to hear that somebody in the world besides he and mama could speak italian! grammie J was out a few times, and then mama and x saw both grammie and grandpa J in april when they flew down to santa cruz.

we also missed papa for a couple of weeks when he was out on the east coast – first for great-grandpa mumola's funeral, and then again three weeks later for great-grandma mumola's funeral. papa came back with many great stories about both of them and many more great old pictures, but nothing that would have compared with the real thing. they will be missed.