“Is God in my closet?”

We are soooooo happy around here that Daddy is home!! God has done some great things while Steven has been away this summer. We do rejoice that in an indirect way we have been able to be apart of the Kingdom work just by staying on the home front; BUT right now we are MORE than thrilled that Steven is home to stay for a little while. Last night Eli loved having his daddy put him to bed and I must say, according to Steven they got into some pretty deep conversations:

new sensations…

The last 24 hours have been full of new sensations. For Eli the sensations have included the following:

1. The sensation of having a nose piece from his sunglasses lodged up inside of his nose.

2. The sensation of two mommies, two office visits, two doctors, four nurses, one anesthesiologists, one outpatient surgery visit, a surprise visit from daddy, one blue snow cone, seven superhero sticker bribes, and eight hours of focused involvement in the removal of the said nose piece.

3. The sensation of hearing several lectures of how we don’t ever stick things up our noses… AGAIN!!! have also been experienced by the little guy.

My sensations have been new and unusual as well. All of the above started on our way back from our visit with Steven. My sensations are as follows:

Last leg of summer…

things have been a bit “hum-drum” since my last post. “Hum-drum” isn’t a complaint just our status of life– actually I’m so glad it’s that way and not the craziness we’ve been in. Our “norm” has consisted of moving back in our home, DEEP cleaning, having a yard sale, putting up corn, and seeing Steven off for his last six days of summer camps with the youth. I am so very ready to get him back home for good!!

Today is my birthday (27 years old) and to celebrate I think we are going to drive up to where Steven and the youth are– hoping that will be fun.

On a side note please be in prayer for our church members that are leaving for India tomorrow. There are several mommies that are leaving their little ones in order to serve. My heart goes out and prayers up for them and their families while they are separated.

Okay well that’s about it. A few pics of our past week-

WE MOVED BACK IN!!!!!!

Wooooooooooo Hooooooooooooo! We are now living in our house as normal people. I have learned through this project that I could NEVER build my house and live in it at the same time. I was almost giddy last night as we were moving our furniture back into the house. I kept telling Steven, “I’m just soooooo excited!”

Great Fourth!!

Hope you guys had a great fourth!!! Ours was very special. My brother Heath was able to take leave last week. We got to spend a very patriotic fourth of July with my soldier brother!!! Dry-rub ribs, potato salad, homemade guacamole, momma-made pies, and tons more AMAZING gourmet food was what we dined on. The kids had a blast swimming, fishing, riding go-carts, watching the cows, and of course shooting off fireworks. Overall it was such a blessed weekend. Eli and Monica fell asleep on the way home and Steven and I were able to spend some “quiet” moments together listening to worship music. My heart was full of praise for the special time God gave us this weekend.

I had my fingers crossed that our floors would be done when got home but alas they are still not finished. Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to wrap things up. So for now our T.V. remains in front of our oven…

I have some things on my heart that it will take time to put into words. Hopefully this week our lives will be able take on some sort of shape again and I will able to blog regularly.

Love You Guys! Thanks for taking time to check up on us.

Floors

In case you’ve wondered we are still without floors.  However, they are coming this way any moment.  Please say a prayer that they will go in smoothly.  This chica and her family are ready to get back into a routine!

Great Ministry Moment… I think…

God has blessed with a wonderfully sweet neighbor across the street. I just met her three days ago but I’ve already fallen in love with her. In her early seventies, Mrs. Jane seems to be a sweet lady with tons of spunk and energy. We were loading up in the car a few days ago and my kids started yelling “hello’s”. We walked on over to introduce ourselves and such. Through conversation it came up that her 50-year-old son was in hospice waiting to die from stage 4 melanoma. For obvious reasons my heart went out to her. I offered to bring her a meal to maybe ease some stress from moving and such.

Dream Come True

Okay so last night was the highlight of my week! We went to a great sixteenth b-day party down on the river. It was held at a location that has a 1939 ferris wheel and beautiful old carousel. The parents has rented the location so we could ride the rides over and again. SUCH a retro and gorgeous spot!!!

After our kidos had ridden everything several times, I looked at Steven and asked, “Would you make one of my life-long dreams come true?” It was so exciting that he knew EXACTLY what I was talking about without me telling him. YAY for him!!! So without further ado, the kids stayed with friends and we loaded up on the ferris wheel. Up! Up! Up!! Yep you guessed it– we kissed right on the very top!!! ooooo butterflies just thinking about it!

Actually it was very sweet BUT the “dream” was a bit distorted because we had kids from our youth group on both sides of us going, “Yuck Smitty!! Come One!! Please Oh Please none of that!!!” sigh… If it’s not Eli and Monica it’s the rest of our kids.

Home Now

So we’re home. It’s not quite as I wanted to be, but I have accomplished alot this week. The two days our floors were supposed to be going in and I had child helpers lined up I painted Monica’s room, repainted the trim in the majority of the house, and refinished 4 pieces of furniture. We’ve survived a week of “Camp Smithson” and my children are not cranky or out of sorts. We’ve played with friends and gone swimming several times. I think they’ve had a blast!! I’m exhausted and feel a little bit as though I’ve lived in a comedy movie this week that might have been called… hmmmmmmmmm…… I don’t know, but something crazy!!!

Anyway, the local carpet company has been so gracious and kind. They came to move furniture back and even brought us a carpet square to let the kids crawl around on until they come back to put the floors down next week.

I wish I had some incredibly inspiring truth that I have learned from the past month but as of right now I’ve got nothing. Just one tired Mommy….

Looking forward to seeing Daddy tonight!

Day 5

This will be short… It will be five days tomorrow that we have been out of our house. We ARE moving back in, however we still don’t have our floors down. =( Our product came in defective. Hopefully they are going to get them down next Thursday. The floor people said this has never happened before, imagine that!!! Well if it’s going to happen it will happen to the Smithson’s. I ordered a salad the other night. When I went to open my plasticware there’s was only a knife and a spoon!!! Out of all of the packages that could’ve been grabbed… Anyway I very much enjoyed the salad I ate with a spoon.

We got home tonight to check on a few things and our hermit crab has run away…

I must say our spirits our up when we are able to stay rested so please pray we can keep getting good sleep. Steven’s coming home tomorrow… very good!