So here's the photo of Owen cruising our couch. He's charging towards the camera (to grab it) while Nathan desparately tried to get a shot before he got too close.
And here's the photo of Owen's teeth. It totally changes his face! You can also see his milk moustache. Owen's been completely weaned now, and drinks cows milk from a cup.
Owen is now one year old! Here is a photo of the family at Owen's first birthday party. The theme of the party was Lions (Löwen Owen, if you've been paying close attention to the blog), hence the cake. Owen still growles, but not so much when he's pooing. Now it's when someone (including him) burps or farts. He tries to copy the sound by growling. Owen was particularly happy in this photo - he went psycho with all the attention.
Owen's gummy grin was very cute, but it's gone now, replaced rapidly with more and more teeth. First the two bottom ones came out (see photo). Then by his first birthday he had three more on the top! (Photo coming - another victim of the computer crash). With teeth has come a much greater ability to eat - even an apple!
Not that he needed the encouragement. He's been an eating machine for most of his life, and is getting a little belly! In fact, food motivates him so much, that most of his first words were used to get more of the food he wants, and less of the type he doesn't like.
We mentioned before that he doesn't really play with other children. His main interaction with other kids is trying to steal their toys or maintain possession of his own. That presents a problem when his hands are full and someone else has toys in their hands. Solution? Drop the ones in your own hands to free them for an agressive takeover! Here's Owen stealing from James, a little younger. 
Everyone comments on Owen's funky hair style. It's hard to capture it in a photo, but here's a good one. Owen's here with his Grandma and Great grandma, trying for the keys and mobile phone. We still haven't cut his hair, and now that it's a bit longer it doesn't stick up as much :(
Having a mum for a speechie means the pressure is on. What's his first word going to be? Contrary to what most people think, babies rarely have mum or dad as a "real" first word. They do babble "mamamamamam", but that doesn't count if they don't use it with understanding. As mentioned earlier, his first words were used during eating. The very first was "More". Very useful if mum or dad is too slow with the next spoonful! Some other early words were "No" and "car". He's getting much better at copying our words now. Even when he can't say the words, he copies our sign language. Here's an example of "uh oh!". His copying is not only for communication - here's Owen trying to turn on the TV, just like mum and dad. 
One of the first things we had to do was Owen Proof the house. Why? Because he's been crawling EVERYWERE. In the last few weeks he's even started cruising furniture! [Cruising is a technical baby term for walking around while holding onto stable objects]. Owen doesn't like the measures we've been taking. Here's a photo of him "in gaol". He's helping the socks to escape - "run away, run away".
Because we're waiting for our shipment to arrive, we've had to give Owen a bath in the full sized tub. Lots of space to play with his bath toys!
But that's nothing compared to Owen's REALLY BIG bath - the local swimming pool. We've started Owen on some swimming lessons - somthing that was just a bit too hard to do in Germany. Not because there weren't any pools or lessons - rather it was organising it all in a foreign language! He doesn't look too distressed in this photo, and actually he's pretty good for his first ever swim. He did cry a bit when his head went under, though!
We left Owen's high chair in Germany, so we bought a new one here. Here it is. The Germans will recognise it as a european style wooden high chair. We couldn't help it, we've turned into Europeans!
Not really, of course. We still love lots of Aussie stuff, not least of all the yummy tropical fruit. This is our first "Real" Mango for 2 years! They have them in Germany, but they are nowhere near as nice.
Now that we are back in our house with a backyard, it's back to gardening for Nathan. Here is the first attempt to clear the veggie patch. Doesn't look like much? You should have seen it before he started. See the bin on the left? That's full of weeds!
We're already missing Germany and all things German. We went to a school fete at the German school to hear the language again and enjoy some of the food. Here's Jo eating a Bratwurst. You can tell it's not Germany because the bread roll is WAY too big. In Leipzig, the bread roll is so small it seems to be just a convenient way to hold the sausage rather than part of the meal. Rather disappointing was that there were no dishes with Quark in them. We met a couple that had spent 14 years overseas, mostly in German speaking countries. They were at the fete for the same reasons as us! Actually, we've heard quite alot of German - mostly tourists, and it's been fun to chat to them a little bit. I think they're quite surprised to see Asians in Australia speaking their mother tongue.
One rather disappointing thing is how quickly we've gotten into watching alot more TV. It makes a difference when you can choose from 5 english speaking channels. Hopefully we won't turn Owen into a couch potato - he's certainly getting the right belly for it. More about that and Owen in general in the next post...
