Liam - 2 years old already!

Liam turned 2 on Oct 13. Here are a few pictures we took of him. I think these will count as his 2 year pics. These are some of my favorites - mostly because of the different expressions.

Our return to Africa

To our family and friends,

We have always talked about returning to Africa, but never knew exactly why we would go back. We have been listening, or maybe ignoring is a better word, and figured out the Lord was asking us to think about adoption. We feel connected to Africa through vacationing in South Africa and sponsoring a child, Mohamed Seid, in Ethiopia. This makes us feel like we belong or are part of the African family. So we have decided to begin the process of adoption from Ethiopia through Bethany Christian Services here in Holland and we are very excited!
This process is like being pregnant minus almost everything that has to do with being pregnant and for twice as long! Thank you in advance for your prayers and support and you are welcome to join us on this amazing journey!

Love, Tim, Jen and Liam DeHaan

Summer Fun Pictures

The Tigers could use some help, so Liam is already training!

Liam loves the big lake

Mmmm, fudgesicles in the kiddie pools - does summer get any better than this?
I don't know where this face came from, but I thought it was funny.
What do you think he is thinking?

Taking a break at Pigeon Lake - this is usually where we put the boat in and just relax - as much as you can with a very active little boy.

No, Tim did not b-sit all 3 boys by himself, but he did have a great time playing with them. Trey is in the stroller and Liam and Carter are riding the monster truck wagon.

Liam's first Seadoo ride. It looks like he is asleep, but he's not. He kept saying "weee, weee" and "one, two, three, GO!" Usually he skips one and three and just says "two, GO!"

Practicing hoops - it's OK - Tim usually plays in his underwear too. Liam loves to help wash the vehicles. Especially now that he can climb into the bucket - it's just so much more efficient! the only problem is that someone has to pick him up and move him to get all four tires.

This is one of Liam's best buddies - Fin. He was born at the exact same gestation as Liam and his mommy was on bed rest at Spectrum too! This fall Liam will be 2 and Fin will be 1, just a few weeks apart. It does not look like a year separates then in this picture!

We have been water rats as much as possible this summer. Liam is loving every minute of it. He could swim all day -and he has.

We take a break every once and a while to dig in the sand.

Our handsome little man is such a ham!

IT'S GOOD TO HAVE GREAT FRIENDS!

It's great to sit down and think about the great friends I have been blessed to have in my life.
I work with an amazing friend, and his name is Troy (It will take him a long time to read this post, so no worries!) Since the day I mentioned the movie "ONCE" with Glen Hansard and Marketa (The Swell Season), Troy realized we liked alot of the same music and took full advantage of that by having my listen and watch various musicians. He has now become a tripple gold member of itunes, if that is even possible, and just purchased the album from the group Mumford & Sons. I just listened to the song "Awake my soul" and found one of the best lines ever. The line reads, "Where you invest your love is where you invest your life" That is a very powerful line.
So be thankful for great friends and then check out some Mumford & Sons on youtube and enjoy!

DIRTBIKE KID!

We took Liam for his first dirtbike ride last week on Tim's dirtbike when he was 4 yrs old. Just as we thought, he loved it!

Some 18 month Liam photos

EAT,SLEEP, AND PLAY OUTSIDE!

Liam loves to be outside. It seems we are out more than we are in these days. After breakfast he will bring you your shoes and wait by the door until you let him out to play. He would eat, sleep and play outside if we would let him!

He loves going for rides in his wagon but if I don't pay close attention I will turn around and he will be standing up like this - wagon surfing. He thinks he is funny, I think he is naughty.

Here we went to visit friends of ours who just had a baby girl, Elizabeth. This is Liam and her big sister Leah playing the piano way past their bedtimes.

The picture doesn't even do it justice, they were having so much fun laughing at each other while banging the keys. Good thing baby Elizabeth could care less - you two were loud!

St. Patty's Pacer and Parade

On Friday I ran in the St. Patty's Day Pacer down town Holland. It was a 5K race that went from Centennial Park to Windmill Island and back again. It was cold but fun. This was my first race in a long time and it felt good to do it again.

Here we are at the start of the race. I ran with Jodie most of the way. We have been running on Mondays and Wednesdays with this group of girls and a few more that could not make this race. It is a fun group with girls at all different running levels. We started out walking and now we run a good 4 miles most days.

Liam loved to cheer everyone on. Tim said he clapped every time a racer would run by.Cam and Liam cheered together. They enjoyed being outside and watching all the people.

Finally, the end of the race. I got my best 5K time, I finished in 29 min flat. It could have been better, but I got a side ache the last mile, urg!

On Saturday we went to the St. Patrick's Day parade. Can you see that Liam is clapping again? He loves to clap! It was cold and windy, but the rain held off. The boys loved the fire trucks and candy. Kelly and I went down with Carter and Liam. Jenn and Rob met us down town with Cam. Rob was the candy catcher but I think he got more for himself than for the boys! :0)

Does he look happy or what? I made him wear this bow tie since you could not see his green St. Patty's Day shirt. In fact in the picture above, you can see all 3 boys are wearing the bow ties. I'm sure they will thank us one day for how cute we made them look!

Play, play, play!

Liam has been getting into everything lately! He is so curious as to how things work. He loves to open and close doors and drawers. He isn't too bad at pulling stuff out, but he does have his favorites.

This day we took out his splat mat (from under his highchair) and played with soap and water. I just let him slash around all he wanted. It was too cold to go outside and with boys, sometimes you just have to let them get energy out. He loved it.

A few weeks ago I went to Diana's Playhouse with some friends from work. The kids are all around the same ages, so they had a great time playing together. This is Liam and Nolan playing the piano together.

Here are most of the kids taking time out for a snack. It was so cute to watch them all sit together.

Here is another one from snack time. Can you see Liam in the back trying to sneak snacks from Nolan? You'd think we never feed the kid!

This is kinda gross, Liam has snot running down his nose! He has been getting his molars in and this week was probably the worst of it, so we were glad to have distractions like Diana's Playhouse to keep us happy.

Lena and Liam riding the fishies together. We played for a couple hours and when we got in the car, I'm not sure we made it out of the parking lot before he fell alseep! He didn't even wake up when we got home and transfered him into bed. He slept for over 4 hours! That was totally worth it!

Here we are at home goofing around with funny glasses. Liam is so ticklish that he just squirms when you try to put these on his head. Leah was over to play and she thought is was hilarious.

Here is Leah and Liam having a little snack. Who says you can't have popsickles in the winter? These two played very nice together too. I love to watch them interact and you can really see their little personalities.

Another picture of Liam playing in the cabinets. I think he must have had a little help getting in this one. He could care less if you shut the door on him, as long as he can open and close it.

EVERYONE JUST SETTLE DOWN!

Our computer was just returned after being stolen a couple days before Christmas. So within the next couple years, we will attempt to post something new!