Bartel's Farm.

I LOVE THE PUMPKIN PATCH!

I love coming every year & taking pictures with these same cute people of mine, in the same cute place. Bartel's Farm is the best. Strolling Sunflower Lane is my favorite, but this year we did the corn maze too and the kids had lots of fun with that. We picked cute little pumpkins for our mantel & went home with lots of roasted peppers that we have been adding to everything we can think of. 

I hope you are settling into Fall & whatever it has for you, have a good week!

Last Years Pumpkin Patchin' HERE

^^^Lucy was probably four pumpkins high the first time we came HERE!

^^^Just cheating our way through the corn maze with an overhead view ;)

The Zoo.

Over the weekend we visited the Denver Zoo. Chris' family met up with us there & it was sweet to be together & spend time. The weather was beautiful & after waking up to at least 5 inches of snow the following day, a Saturday spent outdoors couldn't have been timed better.

The kids loved some different things this year... the bats, the lizards, the cheetah, and as always the giraffes & elephants. They still want nothing to do with monkeys three years running & unfortunately the Lions weren't out as we had hoped. They told us all of their thoughts over dinner & it was some of the very cutest conversation I've ever been a part of. Chris and I were both swooning so hard over our kids that we secretly started filming them and their little voices and hand gestures. Are we creepy? They are so much bigger & smarter & imaginative every day, and whenever we spend time going back and watching videos of them it is the best. 

So thankful for this family of mine, I'm the luckiest.

Day Trip to Estes Park.

A few weeks ago we took the kids up to Estes for the day. It was the last day Fun City would be open for the season, and we had never taken them before. Chris & I slid down this same slide in high school when my own family would go to Estes, and so it was really fun to bring our own kids for the first time. Afterwards we had a picnic on some rocks by Mary's Lake & it was the highlight of the trip for everyone. This made me SO happy. My three kids chose a picnic and throwing rocks in a lake as their favorite part of the whole day over mega slides & go carts... Win! They continue to teach me how simple joy is for them & what it can look like for me too. The day wasn't anything grand & it was nothing short of chaotic, in case our pictures fool you, but we were together & together is happiest.

Our Due Date.

October 8th probably doesn’t mean a whole lot to a lot of people, but to me it was the day I looked forward to from the minute I got that positive pregnancy test. Then came April, and the loss of our sweet baby & it’s since been a date that I’ve mourned, dreaded, and pushed against it's coming for the five months that followed.

I’ve faced hard things before. I lost my dad too soon, & I quietly walked through months of world rocking postpartum depression that felt inescapable after having Isla. But nothing has left a hole so empty as losing our baby & all of the dreams that came with that. 

"Today all I can think about is what might have been. It's a cold Monday & we’re doing normal Monday things. But today is the day that would have been my due date, had we not lost our baby. Nine months ago, the world was so different. I was so different. The concept of pregnancy was so different to me, so innocent. Of course I knew women who had miscarried: my mother, my friends, family. But like anything, when it happens to you it's like waking up to a conversation you've heard before and only now grasp, and you realize entirely anew what they were talking about, what they were trying to find the words to describe."

So that's today, the day of what might have been. We might have another child someday. But we'll never have a child born on October 8, 2018. The baby I found out about in February in the middle of dreaming up house plans at the kitchen table, the happy secret I shared with Chris over oatmeal chocolate chip cookies on the couch after the kids had gone to bed, the baby we envisioned as a family at dinner each night—that baby will never be. And it seems worth stopping for today.

"When you've been marked by what might have been, you don't forget. You know the day, the years. It makes the calendar feel like a minefield, like you're constantly tiptoeing over explosions of grief until one day you hit one, shattered by what might have been.”

On most days, for me, it's okay. I believe & hope that we will have another baby someday. I understand that God is sovereign & bodies are fragile and fallible. I understand that grief fades over time, and that guarantees aren't part of human life, as much as we'd like them to be... but for today, I'm allowing myself the space to feel the weight of the past 9 months, and I'm crying for what might have been💛

Today I’m choosing to share what is often kept private in hope that it may reach someone else in a season of grief or loss or waiting... know that your heart is known, you aren’t alone & i encourage you to face your suffering head on & feel it fully. I believe God has a plan to put our every difficulty to use & we should actively be on the lookout for every chance we can to redeem our suffering by shining our light in the dark for each other💛

**quoted text by Shauna Niequist, because there are no better words than hers.