Christmas catch up

We have had a wonderful week with family!! I will have to do our Christmas catch up postings a little at a time.

I'll start the catch up with a little about Liam. He is still working on his walking and he much prefers crawling. Oma and Opa have taken him for lots of walks.

Liam wearing Mom's hat - he got his own this week because it's been so cold

Coming back from a walk with Oma and Opa

Working on first steps

Jumping

Liam's Strumpfhose

Oma, Opa, and lots of new things

Liam is enjoying a visit with Oma and Opa. They are playing lots of new games with him and he is learning a lot!!

Oma taught Liam how to slide in a grocery bag

Liam used to be terrified of the vacuum cleaner.
Yesterday he began to overcome his fear.

And, a not so fun new thing - for the past day or so Liam as been a little off. He began running a fever this afternoon and was off schedule. As we always assume when this happens, we thought he may be entering another teething phase. Tonight he was so tired he couldn't stay awake, but he was very unsettled. Instead of falling asleep he kept scrunching his eyes shut. Then he began shivering. When I thought he was asleep I put him in his crib and he vomited for the first time. It's either teething or a virus, or both. Guess we are lucky it took 15 months for this to happen.

Onkel Dodi arrives tonight (although he is already 2 hours delayed) and the Boston Bunns arrive tomorrow. Roll on Christmas!!

15 months (a little late)

Liam had his 15 month check up Monday. His growth remains consistent with his previous growth (long and lean). His weight this time confirms what gave him his nickname 'Taz' - - he is very active!!

Length - 32" (73rd percentile)
Weight - 22.2 lbs (no change since 12 months - he burns everything!!!) - (20th percentile)
Head - 18" (50th percentile)

He now has 6 teeth, can stack things and he recognizes shapes when trying to get a round piece in a round hole, etc. He still prefers crawling to walking, but he can stand and cruises very well. When he's not teething he laughs and plays a lot and has started showing affection. All in all, a very sweet boy!!

15 months

Liam - Oma und Opa come tomorrow!!

Oma's coming. That means REALLY good eating. I'll have the duck to start.

In to EVERYTHING . . . still

Liam is at that wonderful age where he is really discovering things. As a result, he is in to everything. Below are some pictures from his play times lately.

Liam just discovered the air duct grill.

His new walker/truck. He loves to play behind the sofa and he was able to squeeze it through. What this picture did not capture was him standing on the seat, then the steering wheel, and jumping over the back of the sofa.

For the Germans, a bottle from Rheinhessen

Our cutie pie

Magnet locks are no obstacle for Liam. He wiggles the drawers so they open.

Building blocks

We have been working with Liam on stacking blocks. Today he finally got it and started stacking blocks all by himself.

Start 'em early

Nanna always believed in starting them young. Put that boy to work!! ;-)

Look what still fits, Oma

Play time with Liam

I have been a little slow getting videos off the camera and into iMovie. Here is a clip with some of Liam's play time from 10 October to 20 November. In the first part he is playing with his birthday present from the Boston Bunns. Tobias taught him 'auf' and 'zu' (open and close in German) with this toy. We now play 'auf und zu' with everything!

The next section shows our little monkey. We got new gates for the house and this is how Liam reacted once Tobias put one of the gates together. Notice that Tobias is spotting him, not helping him.

Liam has discovered his tongue in the last couple of days. He loves to play a game that Poppa taught him where they stick out their tongues and make noise.

Enjoy!!

In to EVERYTHING

Liam is definitely at the phase where he can get into everything!! In the last week or so he has gone from trying to get cabinets open to opening them all and pulling out the contents. He kept me on my toes today!!

Corner doors are no issue anymore!

Ooh, wonder if I can pull everything out?! (The answer is 'yes!')

The morning started with him mainlining cinnamon sugar. He loves playing in the spice drawer. I have given up on keeping him out until we get the magnet locks installed. I saw him playing in there today but failed to think about what teeth would do the plastic bag on which he was chewing. I have no idea how much cinnamon sugar he ate before I realized what was going on.

Oh boy! SUGAR!!!

Hey, look! It falls out onto the floor when I bite a hole in the bag!!

Cinnamon sugar stubble!!

I remember Rob and Ginger saying we didn't need to guess what to child proof because Liam would show us. I did lots of moving things around today because at various other times today I found him eating sidewalk chalk and chewing on the stove top cleaner!!! (Mom of the Year, I know.) Those magnet locks needs to get here already!!

If that weren't enough, Nanna told us that Liam figured out how to climb out the Pack-n-Play yesterday. Let the good times roll!!

Baby bottle

Some days mom drives me to drink . . .

Finger food

Liam is getting to the point it is difficult to get him to eat anything that he can't hold and feed himself. While we know this is a good sign, right now it is frustrating because he doesn't always like the texture of foods that he would normally eat when they are pureed. Breads are fine as are pancakes, muffins, crackers, cookies, etc. Meats, veges, pasta, and rice are not foods he likes to eat with his hands. His top two eye teeth came in last week so he now has 6 teeth ready to help him eat. He just needs to get used to the texture change!

Halloween

Halloween is now a special day in our house. We always remember that today was supposed to be Liam's birthday. We didn't do much this year for Halloween for two reasons. First, Liam is too young to appreciate it. Trying to get him to wear socks and hats is a battle enough so the idea of a costume just seemed like a big battle for no reason. Since he doesn't eat candy we didn't feel a big need to get into trick-or-treating this year. Next year we will attempt Halloween with Liam.

Second, Liam seems to have caught a cold (or has allergies) or something. He is very hoarse and has been coughing a lot. He was OK this morning, but this afternoon from 3:00 PM on was hard work. He was very irritable, clingy, fussy, etc. We thought it might be fun for him to see neighborhood children trick-or-treating, but we only had ONE child come this year.

On top of all this, today is the day we go back to standard time. In addition to everything else, we wanted to keep Liam up another hour to try to get him adjusted to the time change. We will find out tomorrow morning if we have been successful or if we just cost ourselves 2 hours of sleep. Here is a picture of our little guy when he was not fussing today. Oma, as you can see, he still loves his Sandmaennchen.

For comparison - Liam on his due date last year

Call me Bubbles!

When we went to give Liam his bath tonight we realized that Tobias' tub was not working. One of the faucets is stripped and we could not get the water on. We had to go back to the old way of bathing Liam in his tub on the counter. It was a messy, fun time. We have been teaching Liam to splash in the normal tub, so we couldn't easily change the rules now that he was back on the counter. You can imagine how much water was on the counters before we finished bath time!!

Call be Bubbles!!

It's like Tobias told him to put it there. :-)

Exploring the world

The Fall weather has been lovely the last couple of days. This morning we took Liam for a walk. We went to the overlook at Williams Field and he had lots of fun exploring the Noland Trail. (BTW - thank you Win, Wes, and Charlie for my jeans, jacket, and shoes!!)

(The resolution isn't great because these are cell phone pics,
but if you look hard you can see Liam's top front teeth in this picture.)

Something old and something new

First the 'something old': No matter how many times he goes to time out, Liam cannot resist some of the cardinal timeout offenses. Right now touching the TV and electrical equipment is his favorite vice.

Now the something new: Yesterday Liam's new find was the spoon. He played with the spoon for most of the evening. Tobias and I were not sure if we should punish him or reward him for touching the TV and receiver with the spoon and then looking at us to see if it counted. (It did.)

Yard work - in style!

Tobias is always so diligent with stuff around the house. It is not unusual to see him working every day on something. What I had not seen before was yard work in formal dress. I have to admit, this sight made me chuckle when I got home yesterday evening!

15 year reunion

Last night I had my 15 year high school reunion. It was great fun catching up with several people I had not seen in years. The most fun, though, was spending time with some of my favorite people.

Still my favorite German exchange student

The Papa John's Crew

Alex's mom, Beth, got us all jobs at Papa John's in high school. She died of cancer a few years ago. Her favorite drink was Wild Turkey bourbon. This was a toast to Beth. Gone but not forgotten!

Yesterday was also a big day for Liam. He stayed with a babysitter for 5 hours when Tobias and I went to the Norfolk Wine Festival. Thankfully, he did really well!!

I might be cute but I can ROAR!!

Since the weather has finally decided to cool off, Liam is now moving into his fleeces and sweaters. This is a jacket that GG gave him for his birthday. I think this is too cute for words. It's the only head covering he will leave on!!

What sound does this animal make??? RROOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!

Rain, rain go away!!

Yesterday we had a miserably rainy day due to some weather off the coast. Liam needed a rain coat for the first time. He was not happy about a hat he could not remove so it was difficult to get a picture of a wiggle worm!! These were as good as I could get.


Liam is also very interested in fingers foods. After about 15 failed attempts, he is finally eating scrambled eggs. This morning he ate a very large (and messy) breakfast of scrambled eggs and and an English muffin.

Look, Oma!

Oma, look what I wore to the store this morning!! It's finally cool enough. I loved it. It was perfect for our Autumn weather. Thank you again for all your hard work!

Beaver boy

How much wood has Liam chucked, 'cause Liam can chuck wood!! Remember when Nanna joked about Liam becoming a beaver once his top teeth came in? She was right! Liam's top front teeth came in last week and his top eye teeth are about to pop through. If things continue, we won't have to worry about him climbing out of his crib . . . he will eat his way out first!

Feet, cousins, and Nutella

Liam is now gives himself his bottles. We love that he has found a nice, comfy position for his bottles. He now always kicks his feet up. Wonder if we are gonna have to address the issue of putting his feet on the table while he eats . . .



Ann and Abby came over Friday night to spend the night. Here is a little play time with his cousins.

Another 'like father, like son' moment . . . Liam loves Nutella!! At this point he just loves playing with the jar, but one day he will get to try it.