Homeopathic A&E

There are people who occasionally tell me I’m a close-minded old curmudgeon because I have a particularly low opinion of the efficacy of homeopathic cures. I encourage them to enjoy the video below :-)

Anne Müller’s 75th Birthday

On Friday evening we helped Anne celebrate her 75th birthday.

From 2009-02-20 - Anne Müller Geburtstag

The location of Restaurant Carlos in Leimen was well known to us, as we celebrated Rosalie’s christening there in December 2007.

The pictures below show that everyone had a good time.

  

Not content with still photographic evidence, Heike also took this video of us murdering a birthday song (not for the faint-hearted)…

O'Leary, O'Reilly, O'Hare and O'Hara, there's no one as Irish as Barack Obama

Facebook, but for real

The video below is great - what happens when people transfer their online manners to offline situations...

Pavement Artist

About the same time as her brother was learning to cycle, Rosalie was using her artistic creativity to enhance the pavement outside our house. As the video below shows, the biggest issue was to first choose the right colour of chalk...

Liam learns to cycle

Liam has been using his Laufrad since his second birthday, and his bicycle plus stabilisers since Xmas 2007. Today was lovely and sunny, so against Heike's advice, I let him have a go without the Stützräder.

A video of how he got on is embedded below. He was hesitant at first, and agreed after an attempt or two that it'd be wise to wear a helmet. Then he suddenly got the hang of it, and was off cycling towards Rosalie at top speed!

I think I learned to cycle about age 6, so it can't be my natural talent that he's inherited :-)

Liam the clapping crocodile

Here's a video of Liam clapping along to singer Liane at the Kurpfälzer Trabantan's Prunksitzung.




He wasn't the only one who was impressed with the evening's entertainment. Rosalie outed herself as a hard-core Mickie Krause fan by squealing along excitedly to "Finger in Po Mexiko".

As well as the video clip, there are a few photos of the eveining on my Picasa gallery. I particularly like this one of Liam with a clown whom he didn't quite recognise as his aunt Tina:



For comparison, here she is without the clown makeup



It's not hard to understand his confusion :-)

All in all it was a fun night for the whole family.

Weltkindertag

There were some celebrations in Heidelberg on Sunday 23rd September for Weltkindertag. I am informed by Wikipedia that 20th September is the International Children's Day in Germany. International throughout Germany? Anyway, clearly a Sunday was preferred to a Thursday, so the 23rd was chosen.

In any case, below are some photos we took of our kids together with neighbours Anne and Lily.



There was some additional entertainment in the form of African drum music, to which the children happily danced, Youtube video embedded below:

Liam makes his pregnant mother's life easier

One of the more difficult things for Heike in the latter stages of her pregnancy has been lifting our first-born, now going on 14 kilos. Thoughtful son that he is, Liam has responded to Heike's needs by learning to climb up onto the changing table by himself. Play the video to see how he does this.

Liam on his bike

Whenever I say that Liam has been out on his bike, English-speaking people say he's too young for a bike. Yes, I say, but it's not a pedal bike, it's a Laufrad.
Anyone know of a better translation to English for the device below? It's the direct descendant of the "Walking Machine" invented by Baron von Drais in 1817.