The November Post. :)

The fall started with apple picking with some friends. It was a beautiful day!






Then small group went apple picking and through a corn maze--what a fun day!!! We love our small group!


Because the summer was so cool and we never had a chance to camp outside in the backyard, we set up the tent in the basement and had a couple days to play camp.








We have had some beautiful fall days so we went exploring Mt. Pigsah. When we were at the top, it was quite cold because of the wind--but absolutely beautiful.



A random cute shot of Rachel playing under Elijah's bed.


Halloween fun.

Thanks for checking in on us... also... I will be uploading pictures of my amazing trip to Liberia--I hope to get a CD this weekend of all of the members pictures put together. Thank you for all of your many prayers. It was AWESOME!!!! I will tell some stories when there are pictures to put with them.

Here are some pictures from the summer, mostly taken by Anna and Elijah. :)

Kids are sure gifts from heaven!

Riding bikes has ended.

Yep, the kids are pretty beat after several months of riding those bikes. Here are some more recent pictures from 2009.

Mud bathing in our backyard.
In their pajamas. We

keep things formal. Strawberry picking. Anna picked a ripe Rachel.

A little devious looking. Gets it from Mommy. (She has all of you fooled!!)

I don't think there is a booger on there. She has not figured that one out yet.

Riding Bikes

Our friend from China, Alexander Bowmaker, gave Elijah his bike last year. Elijah is loving it this spring! He wants to ride it all day long! Anna is excited to be able to ride her bike again too.

A sweet Easter Sunday picture

Birthday fun

2 of my sisters, Joy and Kate, and Joy's boys Jacob, Austin, Peter, and Patrick drove from Williamston to surprise me for my birthday! It was so fun to hang out for a couple of hours!!! Thank you guys for my surprise birthday party! What a special memory--being in the basement, doing laundry, and having my thoughts go from, someone is in the house--are we being robbed? to SURPRISE!!!!!

The kids had a blast playing together! Jacob came to school to pick Anna up with me! What a fun surprise for her too! When Ryan got home from work, we had a party and then had to rush off to Anna's school program.

Anna and her school for the spring program, King of the Jungle. It was so cute and really well done.

Worship Him

We picked up Hillsong's "Saviour King" on iTunes a few weeks back. Seems like half of the songs have already cycled through our favorites. This one continues to stick with me though.

Sad data reported from China

"Sixteen million girls are missing in China. And now we know what happened to them: They were aborted because they weren't boys."

That's from this article, about the vast gender imbalance in China due to their "one child policy" and a preference among those in Chinese society for a son as opposed to a daughter. That combination has made for some tragic outcomes, including abortion and the abandonment of girls that end up filling orphanages.

And it's one of these girls that we intend to adopt! We are going to submit our formal dossier in the next few weeks. Pray for God to speed up the waiting process. We want to meet our daughter!!

Rocking the monkey bars

Anna and I did some pretty amazing work on the monkey bars today. Take a look. You can't deny what you see on video.

Another mass update

Anna without her 2 front teeth.

The Critter Barn a couple of weeks ago. We love this place. The kids were able to hold the cats, bunnies, ducks... and this time even run with the new baby goats. It was so cute to watch! Rachel did not want anything to do with the curious and playful kids but Anna and Elijah loved it.

We enjoy any opportunity to enjoy the nice spring weather. This is at Hemlock Crossing on a beautiful day.

Our fearless leader.

Rachel's first haircut. I fought it for a long time but finally had to give up--she needed it!

Love and blessings to you! Have a blessed Resurrection Sunday!