Look What We Got...

New Pictures of our Toby!!!! Praying for the remainder of this wait to go quickly...We want our baby home!

I think he likes the slide...and maybe he wants to be a cook?

Daddy says, "Strengthen those muscles buddy. We have some baseball to play!"

Just look at that face... I think he is definitely a Smith!

Loving that smile!!

First Day of School

School Bus is Here!

Someone is excited about something ,at least...breakfast "to go"

Not excited about school (nor getting up early)

Yeah ! There is one in the crew who is excited about the start of school!

Yes, One of our crew is missing. The older "girlie girl" stayed with her cousin for a couple of weeks and started school later.

The very handsome bus driver

Uh!Oh! Wonder what these two did on the bus ride? (No...the bus driver is just a cut-up)

Our school year began back on August 22nd. Our days our filled to beyond capacity, and I am just now getting around to posting pictures. Our beginning of school would not be the same without our annual schoolbus ride. This year the driver took the students to get a "to go" breakfast, not the most nutritious, but fun just the same. True to each year, some of the crew was excited to start the year, and some of the crew would rather sleep in a few hours later. In spite of this, the day went by quickly with all hard at work. We look forward to a great year filled with lots of hands on, interest filled learning!

IT'S HERE...

Making the Time...

...,that is, to catch up on my blogging. We have had a very full and very eventful summer. To tell you the truth, I am not sure what (if any) exciting events took place;however, we have been busy,busy, busy!
Let me back track a little. The summer started as a lazy summer full of plans to just piddle around and have fun being together. We swam a little. We played in the creek a little. We took picnics and enjoyed lots of family time. We took time to plan and host fundraising events in an effort to pay for adoption expenses...and GOD provided. We were able to earn about $5,000 dollars toward our adoption. Some additional funds were gathered by scrimpping, by saving and by the blessings bestowed on us by friends and by "bloggy" friends (who barely know us). All of those monies combined allowed for us to pay for immediate adoption expenses as they came along. See I told you  HE provided! That was definitely a good part... but, we continued to pray (and keep praying now) that the provisions for the remaining $20,000 will be revealed to us. One way that HE has revealed some of these provisions is, also, very good...
...you see, our church was in need of a interim children's minister, for a minimum of 10 mths to a year, as the elders and committee are prayerfully searching for a new minister for this area. We need funds...we love children...we love to teach...well you get the idea. We prayed, the elders prayed, and we agreed to accept the position "temporarily". Here is where the BUSY comes in... starting at the end of July we began to work with the children's program and have been running on high speed ever since. August brought some not so fun news. My sweet, precious grandpa went to be with Jesus. He was 96 1/2 years old at his death. I will be adding a special post to his memory later. It was my grandpa's wish to have a funeral service in the town he lived in at his church there, and then to be buried in his home state of Texas, near my precious grandma( his wife of 68 years until her passing in 2005). So, we shifted gears a bit, changed plans, and made arrangements to cover all our obligations and traveled to the beautiful state of Georgia for the visitation and funeral mass. Then, we were off to Texas to spend a few days before the burial service took place at the end of that next week. It was nice to see family, but it certainly would have been better under different circumstances. We returned home, two weeks of August down for the count, and we began again to fill our role as children's ministers. It has been non-stop...
Oh , and on August 22nd... we began our 9th year of homeschooling with our children...I will have to post our annual start of school pictures, too...Fun Times...