Let's go on a Field Trip

I have this really awesome friend, Amanda, who organizes a playgroup every summer. Last summer I had good intentions of us being involved with it, but it just didn't work out. Anyway, this summer I'm really excited that we're going to be joining in on all the fun. Every Thursday Chloe, Ally (the little girl I babysit and Chloe's BFF), and I will be joining the playgroup on their many adventures.

Today we visited Deanna Rose Farmstead in Overland Park. It was quite a drive, but totally worth it. The girls had a blast. I was a little worried because Chloe started begging to be held right when we got there, but was quickly distracted by all the cute little animals and did really great the rest of the day.

Deanna Rose is a cute little "farm" with lots of animals, a bank, schoolhouse, Indian reservation, and playgrounds. The best part...it's FREE!

We started out looking at the chickens. Chloe loves chickens and thinks they are just the cutest little things. I kinda agree!


The girls found a bench that was just their size and took a best friend picture. Every time I take a picture of the two of them they always put their arms around the others neck. It's so cute!

Chloe, surprisingly, was a little timid around the goats today. I'm not really sure why, but she did finally warm up to this sweet little white goat and gave it a few pets.


They had a really big tepee with all the Indian things in it: skins, what they cooked with, blankets, etc. The girls thought it was really neat to grind the corn.


A little later in the day we came to more goats. They were behind a fence and you could feed them. Chloe decided she wasn't scared anymore and wanted to give them some food. The goats of course all came scrambling when they saw a little one with goat food in their hands. It was kind of funny to see them all fighting to get that little nugget of food. Chloe would try to find the goats that were by themselves and feed them instead of the ones who were crowding each other. I don't know if it was because she was scared of the bombardment or because she felt sorry for the little ones off by themselves. Probably a combination of both!

The girls held hands most of the day, which was good for safety and for my heart.


When we got to the bank you could fill out these little pieces of paper to get a scavenger hunt map. Ally turned our paper in and got 2 little maps. We didn't actually do the scavenger hunt, but they thought it was really cool for the banker to give them something.


All around the farmstead there were cute little things for the kids to do. Here Chloe is pumping some drinking water:


Chloe loooves horses and was so excited to see this horse drawn hay-ride. We didn't take a ride, but we gave the horses some love. Chloe kissed their noses and thought it was funny that they were sniffing her.

There was a cute little garden with lots of veggies and flowers. These were my two favorite flowers in the whole garden.


Overall it was a fantastic day! The girls behaved so well and had so much fun together. Can't wait for next week!

Wordless Wednesday

Summer, Summer, Summertime...

Summer has always been and probably always will be my absolute favorite season. Here is a list of 15 things I LOVE about summer:

1. SUN! WARMTH! (This is absolutely #1! I can't stand winter and all it's frigidness.)
2. Hanging out at the lake with best friends
3. Summer Beer (3 coronas, frozen lemonade, and a bit of vodka)
4. The smell of Chloe lathered in sunscreen and sweat
5. Riding with the windows down
6. Wearing flip-flops
7. Wearing tank tops
8. Royals games
9. Grilling out (another post on this coming soon!)
10. Fresh cut grass
11. Beautiful landscapes (something we really need to work on at our house!)
12. Outdoor concerts
13. Watching Chloe play in the pool/sprinkler
14. Lots of time with friends
15. Late nights outside

**What's your favorite season and why??

Life in the Smith House!

It's been a while! Time for an update in the form of a list because lists make me happy. :)

1. We recently got a new member in our family and she is the sweetest little thing in the world. Her name is Nala and she's a yellow lab. She is much bigger than this picture. I need to get some new ones!
I have wanted a lab since I was small and I finally talked Justin into getting one. I'm not even sure he ever really said yes, but it was one of those things where I knew he wasn't thrilled, but he would let me do it anyway. She's definitely *all* puppy right now and loves to jump, chew, and act a fool. Aside from the normal puppy behavior, she is really very sweet and incredibly smart. We start puppy classes with her tomorrow. It should be interesting! I took her to the vet on Saturday and she was a nutcase. SO excited to see all the people and just couldn't settle down. Typically at home she's hyper, but not *that* bad. It was a little embarrassing actually. My hope is that as she's around more people and more dogs at puppy class she will begin to not get quite so out of control in new surroundings.

2. Chloe is growing so fast and is so much fun! Her favorite things to do right now are swinging, dancing to "Crasting Crowns" (yes, that's how she pronounces it), and going to gymnastics. She looks forward to gymnastics every week and is actually somewhat decent at it! I love that it's helping with her balance and coordination. She is now quite the daredevil when it comes to jumping off things!




3. At the end of April I went to doula training and it was so amazing. It was definitely a confirmation that I was born to be a doula! :) I love everything about childbirth and the idea of helping women have the births they want is something that makes my heart go wild. I had a young mom who was due to deliver on May 21st and went about a week early. I missed her birth because I was so sick I could not get out of bed. My heart was broken that I couldn't be there for her. Luckily I have an amazing back-up doula and she went to be with the mommy, but it still crushed me. I have a few more births lined up in the coming future that I'm super excited about :) I'm thinking about starting a doula blog. We'll see.

4. Justin and I have been working with the youth at church now for a few months and it's going pretty well. I feel like he's much better at all this than me, but we're learning together. It's definitely evident that the kids need a constant support system in their lives. It's really mind boggling some of the things these kids are going through and most people would never know. While we never thought we would work with youth, it has been a huge blessing and we're excited for what the future holds.

5. We're still waiting on a baby. I have kind of just quit worrying about it, but each month is still hard. I'm not sure what God has in store for our family, but I know it's all in His timing and I keep leaning on that!

That's about all I can think of for now. I'm going to try to be better about posting more often!

Your Questions Answered....FINALLY!

Catharine asked: What's something you and your husband do to spend time together?

Our very favorite thing to do together is to try new recipes. We both love to cook, well, and love to eat ;) We are kind of home-bodies (him more than me), but when we do go out we like to go shopping, out to eat, go to baseball games. We don't make date night a real priority, but I think we probably should start doing that. I would love to hear some of the things you other couples out there do together!

Breck asked: What's the one thing you enjoy most about yourself?

This is a hard question to answer. I could easily list the things I don't like about myself. Ha! Something I do like though is that I think I am a compassionate person and care deeply for others.

Alisa asked: If you could vacation anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Hmmm...gosh! There are *so* many places I would love to visit. I think I would pick Africa. The first part of the trip would be a really awesome vacation with safaris and amazing food and learning about the culture. The second part of the trip would be visiting a refugee camp, helping out and learning about the people there, adopting 6 or 8 of the kids and then probably ending up staying there because I am too in love with the people to leave. LOL. Yeah, that's why I don't visit Africa...because I truly am scared that we would end up never coming back.

Matt asked: What do you pray God accomplishes through you by working with the DC Youth AND why are you in the lead?

As for the first question: I am praying that God uses me to really show the high school girls that living passionately for Christ is what is going to help them have a full, happy, healthy life. I think sometimes in high school it is so hard to see outside of yourself and what you want and the activities you're in and the boys/girls that you like and the popularity contests in order to see that walking with the Lord truly will bring you the most joy (at least I know it was for me). I'm praying that I can make some real relationships with the girls and help them grow in their walk.

I have no doubt that they are going to teach/help me way more than I ever will them!

As for the second question: I think this is referring to the little contest of who would have the most questions from blog readers . I won. By a long shot. Guess I won *that* popularity contest. hehe... ;)

Melissa asked: What are some of the biggest challenges and biggest blessings of being a mommy?

Oh, I could write a whole blog post on each of these separately! I will give you my top 3 of each.

Challenges:
1. Discipline. Justin and I think it's *so* important for both of us to be on the same page, so we are constantly changing our "strategies" and re-evaluating how things are working with her. Love and Logic is our main foundation and it has worked well so far!
2. Not feeling like a failure. I often feel like I'm not being the best mom I could be.
3. Chloe's picky eating. The child has about 10 things she will eat and it drives me NUTS! I think we are quickly approaching the time where I tell her she eats what we eat or she doesn't eat. That should be fun! *rolls eyes*

Blessings:
1. Pure love. The moment I saw Chloe I never imagined I could love someone like that. In return, she loves us without reservation.
2. Joy and Happiness. I guess that's two, but they kind of go hand in hand. Being a mom brings me so much joy and happiness. I just don't really see the need in staying angry anymore when there is so much awesome life to live.
3. Getting to be silly. Chloe and I have dance parties just about every day. It's fun to just be silly and act like a kid and having a child gives you a perfect excuse to do that!! :)

Jennifer asked: What is something you want to do before you die, your bucket list?

Oh, I have lots of things. Here are a couple silly ones: Get a tattoo, skydive, and be on The Amazing Race :)

Thank you guys for participating! This was fun :)

Q & A

I feel like I haven't had much to write about lately (or things just aren't coming out the way I would like), so I thought this would be fun!

Ask me anything you want and I will answer the questions in the next few days.

Fire away!!

Thankful.

Do you ever just get completely overwhelmed with thankfulness? Like to the point where it brings you to your knees? It has been happening to me daily for about a month. For some reason, 2010 has had a beginning unlike any other year in my life.

They say your relationship with God has valleys and mountains and 2009 was definitely a valley for me (with a few minutes of mountains). At one point in 2009, I honestly told God that if He was trying to teach me a lesson through my infertility, He had completely missed His chance. I had been open to His lesson for several months and still no baby, so I told Him I was done with being okay with Him trying to teach me something. I didn't want to have anything to do with his lesson! How stupid. I have since completely fallen on my knees in forgiveness over ever telling Him something so dumb. I don't think God works like that and honestly even though I had said that I completely surrendered, it wasn't true. So, when I was thinking about my goals and what I wanted for 2010, my main goal was completely surrendering to God and what he wants for my life.

Our pastor is teaching out of Ephesians right now and for a couple of weeks we heard about how we are God's masterpiece, made to reflect the artist's heart. Suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. This life really, REALLY, really is not about me. It has nothing to do with me except for my life to reflect Christ. It seems like a concept we should get from the very beginning of making the decision to be a God-follower, but apparently I'm slow :) When I started realizing that this is all about God's plan for my life (which is the PERFECT plan), the ideas for my life and our family's are quickly falling away. I'm digging into the Word like I never have before to get to know God better, so I can reflect Him and His love most accurately. Most of all though, I am more thankful than I have ever been in my life.

When I look around I can't even believe I was having such a pity party day after day. I have so much to be thankful for. A husband who loves the Lord, loves me intensely, works so hard for us. A little girl who is the light of my life, who brings me joy every day. A family who is so close to each other that outsiders think we're weird. A house with more than we ever need. Clothes in my closet. Food in my pantry. A church that lights my heart on fire. A Lord who is in control and loves me more than I could ever imagine. Friends who really know me and love me anyway. The list could go on and on and on. It makes me want to just curl up in a ball and cry to think that I was dwelling on what I didn't have when all of this was around me the whole time.

One very practical way this new thinking has affected me is shown in a conversation Justin and I had the other night. Justin had mentioned that he would really like to get a new table for our house. A bar height table. We have always loved higher tables and it *would* look really nice in our dining room. As he was saying that, all I could think was, "But we have a table. I would much rather buy a table for someone else who needs it." That's not to bash Justin because he wanted something new (lol!) or to say I'm some saint (because heaven knows I'm not!!). It's just crazy how your thinking changes when you realize how much you love God, all that He has given you and how much God wants you to love those around you.

2010 is going to be a good year for so many reasons. But most of all because God hasn't missed His chance with me :)