Oh yeah...

While you're here, if you're here, check out the cool slideshow playing on the right. It has a lot of pictures so if you'd rather look at the album just click on it and you should be able to do that.

Also check out Greg McKinzie's new family site.
And Bryan's new blog.
And Greg Kendall-Ball's revamped photo site.

Let me explain...

No, there is no time. Let me sum up.

So much has happened since I took my unplanned hiatus from this site that I could not hope to catch you all up. Nevertheless I will attempt to sum up in an untold number of bullet points what has happened and hereby pledge to do a better (though probably not daily) job of updating this thing with reports, thoughts, and feelings...because I'm just that kind of guy.

• In June of '08 we were turned down by our most promising lead for support
• We moved to Tyler at the end of August to honor their financial support of us, and to convince them to renew - I mean, once they saw how cool we were...
• In October Shiloh officially joined Cedar Lane as a supporting congregation!
• August - December - my daughter grows and continues her quest to be the cutest/prettiest/most precocious baby on the planet
• January - Shaye begins to walk. She is officially a toddler (now 13 months old). I thought she couldn't get any more beautiful but she surprises me daily in this.
• January 12 - We throw the coolest (probably) shindig ever done at Shiloh. Check Larissa's blog for more details.
  
• January 21 - I become a Godfather. Sera Ashlyn Middleton is born to John and Chelsea. Shaye is guaranteed to have 2 great girlfriends for her life - God is good!

I could elaborate for paragraphs on any of those topics so if you want to hear more about any of them, leave me a comment. This is all assuming that in a year I haven't lost every person that ever checked this blog. I reckon that this discipline will still be good for me.

I'll be back...

hodge podge

Obviously it has been some time since my last post. A lot has been happening since then. The last 30+ days have been, in most ways, completely devoted to my daughter. Well, at least the time that I'm not at work. Our entire life revolves around her now. She gets fed, changed, bounced, rocked, smiled at, laughed at, cried at, swung, cuddled, hugged, kissed, swaddled and pacified. Some of our best times have been in the middle of the night, or the wee hours of the morning. She loves to make funny faces and silly sounds. There are time already that I can see her thinking about things she touches or sees us looking at her strangely. What a great 5 weeks it has been.

This past weekend Larissa and I traveled to Fort Worth with Greg and Megan (in a minivan I might add) to meet with our team and to present ourselves before the missions committee at the Richland Hills church. It was a satisfying weekend filled with great food (thanks Mother McKinzie), great friends (we were blessed to be prayed over Saturday night by some of our closest friends), and good conversation. We met on Saturday with Bryan and Eralda and were able to spend some time talking about the team and where we are now and how we see the future unfolding before us. Our meeting Sunday morning with RHCC went very nicely I think. They responded to us positively and we await some feedback from them in the next few weeks.

Larissa and I have been watching a little more TV than normal these past few weeks. Our favorite shows are (in no particular order): House, Heroes, Studio 60, Law and Order: SVU, and Bones. We've also watched a few of the American Idol auditions, some of those people trying out are hilarious.

A blog that I've found that I visit frequently is scottfreeman.info. He's had some great posts concerning non-violence in the past few months that have really had me thinking about the issue and wondering how I got to this point in life without thinking about it. This leads to other issues such as serving in the military, as a police officer, protecting your family, etc. that I may write something about in the future. For now I'm reading and thinking about this and I hope you will too.

This article is very interesting. Any thoughts?

unto us a child is born

Ok so I ripped off some language usually reserved for the baby Jesus, get over it. Early on Christmas morning Larissa woke me up with a "my water has broken!" Just like that we were off to the races...I mean hospital.

Shaye Rebekah Smith was born on December 25th, 2006. She weighed 7lb 12oz and measured in a respectable 20 inches. She is unbelievably cute and has been a very good newborn. I will stop here and post pictures for all to see. I'm positive more will follow. Click on the picture to the right to be taken to the pictures.