My heart is heavy.

Lately I have not taken the time with our blog to truly be able to speak what's been on my heart and on our heart as a family. I am regretful for that, but at the same time know that business will more than likely get the best of me yet again.

So the title of this post... my heart is heavy. My heart is very heavy. Maybe just a few words would help -- emotional, confused, angry, peaceful, silenced, loved, comforted, disturbed, frustrated, hopeless. What a range of emotions huh?

All of this started I'm sure a while before it was really brought to light. But the thing God used to draw our attention, Cam included, was the awful news of abuse at Penn State. Even in writing this blog my entire being is filling with emotion. For an understatement of the week -- this has been hard for us. Cam and I reacted in many ways of retreating, feeling shameful, being scared, feeling unsafe, clinging, feeling needy, sitting still, crying, yelling. It has been a roller coaster. Our past two small groups were on justice/shalom and finally the Kingdom of eternity.

I know all of this sounds like word vomit and partly because it is. I can say now that Cam and I stand at a different part in the journey that includes reflection, but by no means are we "through it". We are wrestling with the fact that our prayer lives are absent. We have just about zero discipline in reading our Bibles or talking to our Heavenly Father and it is ringing loud and clear. How thankful I can say now that this was brought to light not as fatherly punishment and discipline, but rather as a Husband would tenderly draw near to His bride.

I still have all kinds of "why" questions and at times am yelling them towards that same tender God. But I can say today that my husband prayed for us before we went to bed last night. And today I started a brand new prayer journal after I sat and soaked up the wisdom of our church's Bible study. Who knows what tomorrow will bring but as I drove to work this morning I was able to sing with hope these incredible words...

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,Let this blest assurance control,That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,And hath shed His own blood for my soul

One of the most helpful pieces of wisdom we received in pre-marital counseling was the knowledge that we are continually in spiritual warfare. How quickly Satan deceives me into believing that's not true. I stand hopeful though knowing I have been given armor, and not just regular armor, but armor prepared by my God. And I rest knowing...

"The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation." (Exodus 34:6-7)

... is my LORD and will be is my shepherd all the days of my life.

A whole lot of October

October has been an eventful month in the Smith household. We've had some very special memories this month!

We'll start with the visit from my in-laws. They are GREAT! Cam and I made a list of things to do in St. Louis before they came thinking "no way will we get to all of these". Correction -- we did our entire list and more!

Here are just a few:
- Botanical Gardens
- Souxlard Market
- The Hill
- The Zoo
- Visit to the seminary
- Central West End
- Forest Park
- Cathedral Basilica

Then we moved on to Halloween. This year, unfortunately, Cam had class on Halloween so he wasn't able to join me and the rest of our small group. One of the couples prepared chili for us to eat before we took the kiddos out to trick-or-treat. An interesting thing I found out about St. Louis is that people expect kids to tell a joke when they get candy... weird. A cool thing about this particular couple's neighborhood is that they give candy to the kids, but beer to the parents. It was definitely different but a blast!

Here are some of the cute kids in our small group:

Oh my goodness... how could I forget the World Series??? We had such a great time as the series went on watching the game different places. The night of the final game rolled around and all of the bars were slammed. We finally found this little pizza/bar place close to the seminary and were bummed at what we thought was going to be a boring place to watch the game. Little did we know about 40 other people from the seminary came over and it was such a great time celebrating the Cards.

Just a short video of the last pitch --- AND THE CARDS WIN THE WS!!!

Finally I grabbed a couple of cute pics of Fran this month. My love for this girl is growing each and every day!

And last but not least... this past weekend Cam and I headed over to a couples house that are in our small group. Dan and Belinda were great hosts except they're Nebraska fans :\ Tough loss for Penn State, but a good game and great time spent.

Once again it's been a while since I've fully updated our blog. Whether it's waiting on pictures or just pure laziness -- one of them always leaves our blog empty. A few things to update our followers on:

1. The cardinals are in the world series!!! After much discussion with my challenging husband, I've decided that since I know the most about the cardinals and since I live in Cardinal nation -- I have to be a cardinal fan. No complaining here :) We've enjoyed the times of watching the games with our friends at various locations. Our plan was to splurge and buy series tickets -- we decided against that when tickets rose to $250 a ticket :).

 My new jersey!

2. Thanksgiving is right around the corner and that means two things. One, Taylor Gordon is coming to visit the Smith household! We are more than excited to see our brother after many months of separation! It should be an adventure seeing that it's our first time doing this whole turkey making thing and what not. Two, we have turkeys in our front yard! This picture was taken with my phone without a zoom! I've never been hunting, but I sure have an urge to shoot a turkey... hum.

3. Christina and Paul got married!!! This past weekend has been a blast as we prepared to celebrate paul and christina's wedding. Laura came in town and it was so great to see her. Not to mention, she kicked the smiths back into the health kick gear. It was great to spend time with her running, eating, and celebrating not only the wedding but her birthday!

Cam and I at the wedding

Two of my most favorite St. Louis ladies! Emma and Ally

PS: Ally ran her second marathon the day after the wedding and finished with a 10 minute mile pace!!! I have incredibly talented friends!

Well baby duties call. I hear Ms. Fran has just woke up... more on our lives soon!

Camping and IPhone

This post will be shorter than the others and not cover all the ramblings I would love to throw in.

This weekend Cam and I drove to Lexington, KY to meet Andrew and Kelly for a weekend of camping. The weekend was a blast. We definitely wish these things could happen on a daily basis, but for now it's just not possible.

While we were there Cam and I took a leap and bought an IPhone. I am beyond words of excitement and so extremely thankful for God's blessing on us right now. We don't deserve free housing, a great job, a beautiful marriage, or incredible friends and family, but God has chosen to bless us with all of those right now and Cam and I are beside ourselves.

Our picture after showing Andrew and Kelly our new IPhone!

More pictures to come from the weekend :)

How is God at work in your life?

What a loaded question! I mean come on... I can't give you the text book answer when you throw a question like that at me! What is the text book answer anyways? When I respond do I look defensive or searching for approval? Should I just push it off and say I don't know.

These are the millions of things that ran through my head just one week ago when my husband asked me this question. What a joy it is to be married, but how painful the relevance is sometimes. Cam asked me a simple question and my immediate response is to come up with the "best" answer.

There is FREEDOM in the Gospel! Say what?! You mean I am free to love the Lord in my imperfect ways? You mean I don't have to have the text book answer?! Wow! I am so thankful for my husband, his care for the gospel, his love for our God, and his love for me.

What was my response you ask? A tearful sigh of... I am so afraid. I have so many fears that come before my fear of the Lord I can't even begin to count them. Fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of looking bad, fear of non-security... and the list continues. My husband who loves me dearly -- enough to challenge my frozen fearful self has been so patient as the Lord continues to teach me to fear Him above all things. A God who continues to love a wayward people who reject Him day after day. A God who has adopted me into His family and therefore declared me special. A God who desires to see me take joy in the freedom of the Gospel -- that is the God I serve!

So what makes me think of all of this now? My new job is to love on a little child. To basically be her mama when her mama isn't able to. Part of my daily routine with Frances is to spend some time reading. Today we read The Jesus Storybook Bible. As I started at the beginning and read of God's unfailing, unconditional, unwavering love... I teared up and pray that the Lord would give me wisdom and strength to teach and display the same love to another one of His children.

The Market

Saturday was the first of many Saturdays to come that Cam and I were able to freely choose our schedule. We slept in a couple more hours, made a delicious breakfast, and decided to head to the market! Growing up, I never went to the market. It just wasn't something our family did, or maybe they didn't have one. Any who, I was absolutely amazed. It was yet another moment in our relationship where Cam was surprised that my eyes filled with childish delight and the giggles started overflowing. 

Picture on the way

The entrace

Just a sale going on... no big deal :)

Awesome men! I didn't realize until we were leaving that the bucket says "please tip if you stop to take a picture". My guilty conscience of course said I was already in trouble, but I quickly gave them a dollar and scampered away.

We were surprised to find that our bargain shopping had never lead us here. Cam and I are always looking for the next coupon or sale. We quickly found out that all the produce is not only fresh and local, but it's significantly cheaper than even the cheapest grocery store!!

I thought this was adorable

Handsome :)

A picture of the street the market was off of. The buildings have so much character.

A walkway of plants

The awesome apartments that used to be the projects. They are now some what refurbished. 

We left with a couple peppers, a watermelon, a cantaloupe, some strawberries, and my very own Cardinals jersey. We were so excited about our new discovery that we went straight to the hill to spend our living social coupon at the local Italian grocery store. We have plenty of wonderful food this week and we had super fun adventure that will for sure be remembered

September from beginning to end...

September has flown by for the Smith household. So many things have happened that I can't believe it's only been one month! To start things off... Cam and I (with the help of mama) flew down to Florida over Labor day weekend. We stayed for 3 nights and 3 days down at Cam's parents house. Stan, Charissa, the girls, and Bowden all made the trek to meet us in Leesburg. On top of that, we were able to spend great quality time with Allyson (mother-in-law). Here are a few pictures from that weekend...

Brooklyn and Baylee loving the pool!

My girls

The newest addition -- Bowden

Now... fast forward 10 days or so and you have the next event. My wonderful husband bought me tickets to see my favorite player -- Chipper Jones. They lost to the Cards, but Chipper hit a home run!

Chipper up to bat

The view from our seats!

Last but not least... we have officially brought fall to our house. Cat came with me last weekend and we bought quite a bit from Hobby Lobby. In the end Cam and I love waking up to our more "homey feeling" apartment. (There's not a picture, but our house currently smells like spiced apples :))

PS: we have had wild turkeys living in our neighborhood for about 3 months now... a few pictures below

Welcome entrance

Notice our favorite part -- the tiny bales of hay

Our living room table

Touch of fall by the tv

Finally our center piece... in the middle of making dinner :)

We love and miss you all! Happy Fall!!!