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