speeding through march

March has been a good month.  Busy but good.

The kids have started going back to New Frontiers for the spring semester and they LOVE it!  Benjamin is attending now!

I went to Altar84's conference, Know More Orphans, in Birmingham and besides Empowered to Connect it has been the best orphan/adoption conference I have attended.  I attended a pre-conference session on raising children of another race and heard the reality and truth of racism today and I was shocked by what I learned.  I think this session is supposed to posted in audio form on their website and if and when it is I will post it here and on facebook too.  It is a MUST for those raising children of another race.

Rusty's mom was here for a week and his brother and his family came down and we all went to the Teach Them Diligently convention.  It was good for all ages.  Learned some new things, got encouraged and just had fun.

March 10th marked the 12th anniversary of the passing away of Rusty's father.

Here he is with Aubrey and Carter, it was the last trip he made to our home.

Spring brings the moles and mice out... our Jo is fully engaged in catching and playing with them.

He did this all on his own.  The is huge given the fact that he is scared of so many animals.

Dude is HANDSOME!

And growing up so quickly...

Spring is time for catching creatures that lurk in the back yard.  On warm nights we are hearing frogs and crickets and such, it is great!

This one wants to walk in the woods EVERYDAY!  We need to do it more than we do.  We always have fun and learn and discover.

Maybe a little attitude, just slightly?

This one likes to chop, shoot and capture anything.  He enters the woods with an ax, knife, gun or container in hand to carry out his mission.

Our cats.  They walk in the woods with us.  Strange but fun!

Aubrey was having her American Heritage Girls unit over to shoot some archery.  We had to be creative in ways to set up targets.  We found this tire in the woods (yes, there are a few dump sites that need to be cleaned up) and Benjamin and Hope knew they could get it out all by themselves and they did... it took forever!!

These 2 are crazy active...

Little miss (sassy) sunshine...

Hope and her favorite cat, Grayson.

Another sign of spring.  The chickens giving themselves dust baths.  This helps kill mites and bugs that get in their feathers.  It is really quite comical to watch.

The oldest 3 kids take turn cooking dinner one night each week.  Andrew loves to make pizza.

Archery with AHG (a faith based girl scout type organization that we love).

"Him does love me so much"... ok, Hope!

I have a love hate relationship with spring cleaning.

This is what I found UNDER MY FRIDGE!

Gross and embarrassing but glad it is gone!

The coils of the fridge were covered in this dust.

She loves her Daddy!

Aubrey and I served at the 4H pancake breakfast.

We took MaSue to the zoo!

I turned 38 on march 19th.  Aubrey made me a cake!  (sorry for the sideways shot)

Miss big hair!  Full of personality... must channel in the right direction:)  She wanted to send MaSue a picture of herself the first night she was gone after 9-10 days of being here.

The month is not over.  We travel to Cookeville on Saturday for an air rifle tournament for Carter and Andrew.  Aubrey will be attending Animal Science Camp with 4H for spring break.

We have loved having warm days (up to nearly 80) and dislike days like yesterday where there was snow on the ground.  We have lots of sniffling noses, no wondering why!

ANDREW has started a blog about himself and the things he likes to do.  It is called
OUTDOOR ADVENTURES with ANDREW COLE.

Peace and Grace to you all!