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!!!

3rd row Pirates

Cam and I are fully aware of the budget we must have right now in our young married lives, but we're also aware of the memories we want and hope to create when opportunities come up. Well this past Thursday an opportunity and we were more than enthusiastic about it.

The house we are currently living in is a mere 15 minutes from Busch Stadium (Cardinals). All day Cam kept an eye on the ticket prices online to see if we could possibly see his love -- The Pirates. With 15 minutes before game time... we bought 10$ tickets sitting 3 rows from the field on the third base line. HOLY COW!

I'll put up a few pictures from one of many dates to come that will last as a Smith family memory.

Our view

A zoomed in picture of McCutchen

Cute

Pitchers after the game

Pool!

So unfortunately I don't have time to update on our lives right now, but I wanted to throw up some pictures of our backyard fun with the doggies :)

The only swimmer - Mario

View of the pool

Patio by the pool

Pool 

My lousy picture of Cam jumping into the pool

Cam's swimming buddy

All smiles

The wimpy dogs - Red (little) and Rose (black)

I also threw in a couple pictures from the Muny. The Muny is an outdoor theater in forest park where broadway shows come to town. Of course you can buy the seats up close, but we choose the freebies. I went recently with a couple of girls to see "The Little Mermaid" -- it was a blast!

Ariel