Evan...

Evan has grown up a lot in the past few months. He has a very friendly personality and some of the things he says are so mature. He picks up on every little thing we say (or spell!). He has learned how to pump his legs on the swing, and can go really high...he calls this his swing exercices. He will tell me that he's going out to do his swing exercises, then he'll come back 5 minutes later!

He posed on this chair and asked me to take a picture "for Opa and Oma." We took him on a GO train to his first baseball game. He loved the train and the attention from both of us.

3 hours is a little long to expect him to sit in a seat...after 10 minutes, we were up and wandering the Rogers Centre. We got to know it pretty well.

He had fun playing musical chairs, sitting on our laps, and Uncle Brian's & Auntie Jenn's.

Even though the Jays lost, we still had fun!

Coffee Table Fun

Yesterday it was a playground.

Today it was a barn for tractors & backhoes!

Happy Baby!

Liam is now 6 months old. He will smile at anyone, and is usually quite content. He loves his brothers, and his brothers think he's great!

I was holding the TV remote and the batteries were dying, so I banged it on my leg. Liam thought it was hilarious for some reason...

The Little Boy in the Tree

Evan went to Sunday school at Grandma's church today. Afterwards I asked him what his story was about. "Jesus helped a little boy who was stuck in a tree." It took me a few minutes to realize the story was about Zacheus!

Summer Fun

I walked into the living room and found both boys "reading" to Liam - even showing him the pictures!


Today we were talking about going on the 401 to Grandma's house, and Evan wanted to know how we were going to get there. So we got out the map of Ontario, taped it to the table, put stickers on where everyone's houses were (grandparents, aunts & uncles...) and drove cars to each person's house. He seemed to understand fairly well, and they had fun, but I had a hard time explaining that Uncle David's house in Korea was not on the map!

Liam is still healthy and happy. Look at the arms and legs! Such a cutie! He really enjoys participating in conversations and sitting at the dinner table with us.

Darren had a bit of a sick day last week....just a fever and being very sleepy and cuddly. Note the little puddle of drool...





Video #1
The boys were playing outside in the mud and got dirty head to toe. All of a sudden it started pouring. I thought they would come in, but they started giggling, and as the rain came harder, they laughed harder. They were running around, singing "Thank you God for the rain!"


Video # 2 Liam is not as quick to laugh as the other two were, but once he laughs, it's hard for us not to!


For the past few weeks, Evan and Darren would sneak out from the back yard to the van every now and then. I would come out to the driveway and find them sitting in the van "driving" (if we had forgotten to lock it). They know that they aren't supposed to do it, and are very sneaky about it. Yesterday they were playing on the driveway while I was hanging laundry. Evan came to the back of the house and told me he was going in. Two minutes later, he came outside and told me that he wanted to come back out. I looked closely at him and noticed that he had the van keys behind his back!

Another crazy part to this is that he has been asking me what everything does in the van (what is that pedal for, that button, that switch...how do you go backwards/forwards...). He will be driving before we know it!

Family Time

We spent some time with the whole Renkema family. The two youngest had fun together.

The weather was a bit cool, but nice, so we spent the afternoon at the beach. The boys had a great time - they even went into the water (the adults weren't so brave!)

Brother-in-Law Having Fun With Pictures

Notice anything different??

Surprise For Mom/Grandma

So we (the VanBreda siblings) decided it would be nice to take mom to see the Sound of Music in Toronto. We told her to come to Orono in the morning, but she didn't know what she was doing, or who she was doing it with. She and I took the train to Toronto, had lunch, wandered for a bit, and ran into Jenn and Steve. Mom was quite surprised, but still didn't know what the plan was. Eventually, when we found ourselves sitting on a bench across the road from the Princess of Wales theatre, she guessed that we were going to see The Sound of Music. It was an amazing show, and a great day! Somehow, Jenn and I ended up dressed alike...not planned!