Christmas Program

Liam had his first Christmas program at school on Tuesday. His class sang two songs and told a knock-knock joke. Liam has been working very hard on his songs and we finally got to see why. 

The first song was I'm a Little Snow Man. The tune is to I'm a Little Teapot but the words are:
I'm a little snowman, short and fat.
Here are my buttons. Here is my hat.
When the suns comes up I cannot play.
Slowly I will melt away.

 

We told Liam if he behaved and listened well that he would get a treat. Apparently his teach had arranged the same thing. After the first song Liam ran up to us asking for his treat. We told him he had to finish so he turned to his teacher and said 'Can we have our treat now?' :-)

The second was Santa Claus is coming to town. Aydan (the kid Liam blames everything on!) introduces the song by saying 'Hey everybody, Santa Claus is coming town.' (This video is slightly clipped. I will fix that in final editing.)

Liam did a great job so he got a special treat - a lollipop!!

I (heart) Liam

Cara is in Liam's play school class. She has a crush on Liam. We first learned of this at Thanksgiving when she wrote on her project that she was thankful for 'the mommies, the daddies, the puppies, and the Liams.' She always screams and yells and runs up to him when he arrives each morning (a bit like Elvis or The Beatles). Liam doesn't know what to do with all of it. It seems like it scares him a little.

Today she showed up wearing this t-shirt!! She's covering the important part but you get the picture.

Knock-knock

Our first knock-knock joke. Let the fun of preschool knock-knock jokes begin!!

Thanksgiving II

We headed out to the Noland Trail for some pictures. Here are some pictures of what we are thankful for!!

Thanksgiving

As we head into Thanksgiving, Tobias and I have been reminded that we have something for which we will always be thankful - - that Liam is healthy and I am alive.

We took Liam to an orthopedic specliast for his feet. While I was giving Liam's medical history to doctor I said that I had a placental abruption at 32 weeks. When I said that he turned around and looked at Liam and said, 'I can't believe what I am seeing. He was an abruption at 32 weeks? Best case scenario he should have some form of partial cerebral palsy. I can't believe how big and healthy he is!' The doctor then looked at me and said, 'And you shoudn't be sitting here.' He then looked at Tobias and said, 'You do know you are one of the luckiest men on earth, right? Your wife is alive and you have a miracle child.'

That kinda puts our impatience with Liam's three-year-old drama into perspective, huh?

Thankfully, Liam's feet are structurally sound. He appears to be too limber and that is what is causing his feet to pronate inward. He is getting fitted for heel and ankle SMO's. Not sure what his will look like, but something like the picture below. These are not guanrateed to fix the issue, but they do not allow it to get worse. (Oma - time for Fussgymnastik boot camp over Christmas!)

Here are some pictures of Liam at the doctor's office. We all laughed at the shorts he had to wear for his exam. This was the smallest size they had.

Do these shorts make my butt look big??

Pumpkin carving for real

After our practice run, Liam got to carve his pumpkin for real this time. We had a neighborhood pumpkin carving party yesterday afternoon. We decided to carve Liam's at home since we didn't think his attention span would last long enough at the party.

Here are some pics and a video from the day.

Liam loves cats at the moment. Here he is eating his M&Ms like a cat. Complete with meows.

Liam's favorite thing at the party was our neighbor's dancing pirate. He was fascinated by it and loved dancing with it.

Pumpkin carving

It's pumpkin time again! Liam helped me clean our first pumpkin of the season for some stir-fried pumpkin (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/stir-fried-pumpkin/detail.aspx)

Liam used to love stir fried pumpkin when we was a year old. Now he won't touch it.

Here are some pictures of my little helper.

The Book of Me

Liam brought this home today from play school. His answers are in quotation marks.

Sand and water

 We are in another phase where we look at pictures of Liam and we can see that he looks different. We knew he was growing again lately. We can really see it here!

We finally got Liam's sand box going. The digger was a big hit!!

Here are some cute pictures from bath time tonight. Liam is not afraid to get his face or head wet. Probably time for some swimming lessons!

Liam used his lungs

The theme in Liam's play school class this week is the body. Liam brought home this balloon today and for some reason I found it very cute. His teacher told us Liam insisted on blowing up the balloon by himself. She didn't think he would do it but he actually did. Liam used his lungs!! :-)

The Chipmunks

Here is Liam's playschool picture for the Autumn. Here are the Chipmunks!! (I am not sure what is off with our scanner but I can't seem to get it straight and avoid the extra space on the right.)

Kopfschmerzen

Liam has learned some simple treatments for everyday injuries. In his mind anything that hurts can be fixed with the rice sock or a Band-aid. On Thursday Tobias had a migraine. When Liam heard that Papi had a headache he jumped up and said, 'Papi braucht ein Pflaster.'  (Papi needs a Band-aid.) Here is a picture of Papi with his Pflaster.

Liam also loves visiting Ms. Bella's house and seeing the cats. One of the cats is injured. When Liam was going to bed tonight he told Tobias that Ms. Bella's cat was hurt and needed a Band-aid. :-)

School picture

Autumn pictures are back from Liam's play school. When I look at this picture I see a lot of Bunn with Opa's smile!

Big boy pants and camera

Today was a big day. After seeming to lose interest in potty training, we decided to get Liam big boy underwear to see if we could breath some life into the process. Liam LOVED his new underwear. I showed him how to go to the bathroom standing up and he thought that was the best thing ever. Without me showing him he automatically wiped the bowl of the toilet when he was done. I guess he has been watching Papi :-). At any rate, at least for tonight, Liam consistently went to the bathroom without any accidents. This is probably due to the novelty of it all . . . but I'll take that for a day!!

 Liam in his new Thomas the Tank Engine undies

After his potty success I wanted to reward him with something. When I took his picture in his new undies he asked to see the camera. We do not normally let him play with the camera because, as we tell him, 'It is expensive and there isn't enough money in [his] piggy bank if the camera breaks.' It, however, seemed to be a nice reward for his learning today so I let him try to take my picture as he was asking to do. Enjoy Liam's first photo shoot of Mami.

This and that

Here some pictures from the last couple of days at the Janke house . . .

Liam learned about 'tanken' when Tobias had to fill the generator twice a day after Hurrican Irene. Now Liam has to 'tank' before he drives his car. 

Liam in his Spiderman slippers with the 'crash and burn' helicopter -
one of his favorite toys, Onkel Dodi!!

Liam decided he wanted to play in the dryer the other day. He said it was a little 'eng' but he stayed there for about 15 minutes talking to us.

 Liam is in a big train phase because he loves Thomas the Tank Engine.
Onkel Dodi, notice another favorite toy!

 Today we were talking about Halloween costumes. Since Liam won't be in the US for Halloween I decided he could play with his costume early.
He loved being Bob, der Baumeister. (Yes, I did put his tool belt on upside-down . . . )