Happy Halloween!!

It started snowing right after these were taken!!

YES, snow.

Follow the yellow brick road!

Happy Halloween from:

Glinda the Good Witch, Tin Man, Scarecrow & Dorothy!

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trick or treating with toddlers

1. Plan your route ahead of time

I try not to go to too many streets away from home. We live in the midwest so most the time its pretty chilly out, & if you dont have a stroller/wagon or if like here they are "big girls" and want to walk; those little legs can get tired pretty fast! Also, you don't want to get too far from home & in the dark, & decorated houses get lost with cranky cold toddlers!

2. Comfy shoes

As much as those adorable dress up plastic shoes are on the girls, they arent practical for walking about! Nice comfortable shoes are great!

3.Flashlights

Have one. As much as YOU as a parent would think about yourself driving around on Halloween, there are just as many people that aren't even thinking about those little ones. It takes even the most cautious parent for a kid to see something exciting across the stress & dart! Glowstick necklaces are great too! I've seen some parent put a strip of reflective tape on their kids costume, which is pretty genius!

4. Be careful with masks

It can be hard to see & breathe in some of those things. If your child is having trouble with it at home, ex the mask all together & find some non-toxic paint to paint it on your kids face!

5. Prop weapons

I'd like for all those prop weapons to be flexible & plastic but it just not the case with some costumes. Make your child knows it not to hurt people or to play hurting people. If i had a dollar for every time I saw a child get hurt  last year from a little child  or hurt himself with a sword or numb chucks I would have enough money to buy a few extra bags of candy for myself ;)

6. Check that candy

& by check i mean steal all your favorites claiming your checking to make sure they taste ok ;)

No in all seriousness I can't believe we still have to do this but we do. Make sure you throw away any candy not in its original wrapper or any wrappers that look as though they have been opened!

7. HAVE FUN!

Take pictures, enjoy the moments & wonder of "OH MY GOSH CANDY" in your childs eyes or when they see their favorite character walking down the street!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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Apple Orchard 2014

Another fall activity my family loves is apple picking. We went VERY late this year. & there was only one kind of apple left; but we got just enough & the right kind for me to bust out a few more apple pies & crisps!

I found this orchard last year, & loved it so we went back this year! 

Check out last years photos HERE, look how much Kensley has grown!! Its so crazy!!

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Halloween at the Zoo

One of our favorite things to do every halloween!

Here is a comparison for when the girls were 6 months & a year! both are looking almost the exact same ways! ha!

Miss shy girl at her first trick or treat stop

not this one!

after one stop kensley figured walking was for the birds & rode like a diva the rest the way in a warm blanket.

curbside service

we are hoping this is a sign kensley will sit with santa this year!

people always ask how i get such great pics of the girls together.. & it isn't always easy here are some outtakes. it always either one or the other

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things I love about fall

I really love every season, I think summer I get sick of relatively quickly. I get over the heat mostly.

Christmas is really my favorite, but fall takes a very close 2nd!

Here is why:

1. Scents

Mostly fall scented candles! Pumpkin spice, spiced smelling anything pretty much everything in the candle isle with an apple, pumpkin or leaves on it I love & have 10 of.

2. Wardrobe

The leggings, the hoodies, uggs {yes i love them, judge me}, jeans, scarves. I love it all! 

3. Family Fun

I LOVE all the activities there is to do with my family during this season. Pumpkins & mazes & hayrides! I feel like there isn't enough weekends to get all that we want to do! Locally we have fairs & festivals not to mention apple picking & pumpkin patches! It just a season of making great memories, there is always a reason for family to get together!

4. Cozy

The coziness of the season. We always have a couple good heavy quilts ready in the living room with a fire going. We are HUGE fireplace people. We have a wood burning fireplace & generally have one going every day thru fall & winter! 

5. Drinks

I only drink iced coffee in the spring/summer. But just as soon as there is slight chill in the morning I bring back out my coffee pot. Having a mug every morning waiting for the girls to wake up is just the best. Apple cider that has been simmered in mulling spices is also a huge favorite in the house, besides with Brandon. & it makes the house smell great!

6.Baking
Apple pies, pumpkin pie, pumpkin roll, apple crisp! YUM!

7. Its almost Christmas

have you seen this meme? I am the Will Ferrell! Whenever walmart {pretty much the only store near me} put out decoration in the back we have to go back there, every.single.visit. We look at the little villages & listening to music. Look at all the ornaments & trees! I still wait til after Thanksgiving {the sunday after we get our tree} but just looking at it all gets me SO happy. Although I wait til after thanksgiving for decor, please know i've always have been listening to Christmas music for QUITE some time before then!

Do you love fall? Or what is your favorite season? What your favorite part?

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A year later..

Times just keeps passing. 

Week after week & I keep thinking where did "such & such month go" & there we are in the next month!

I feel like I was doing a great job keeping up with writing! It felt so good & then, one day of not writing became a week & so on & so fourth.

Mostly, as fall approached. Without knowing dates I knew the year since we lost the baby was creeping up. For some reason, unlike the past losses due date was no big deal for me. I didn't flinch. In fact I didn't even notice til after the fact. But the actual happening of the loss was haunting me. I started almost physically feeling the weakness that I felt. & then the emotional pain came in.

The loss was enough to handle itself. But there was SO much more that went on. Between my marriage, friendships, myself.

I recently found a blog post I had typed out on phone from last year. I didn't know if I would ever post it; but putting my thoughts & words to "paper" is my thing. 

I wrote:

Those that did know, didn't call. And those that didn't know, didn't call when they found out. This experience was different from my losses previously. I've never felt so alone in my life. I have children now, crazy busy toddler children now. I am no longer the center of y husband attention. It felt so werid to pick up exactly where I left off without a week or two of crying, depressed in bed.

 I remember that Monday. It was one of the scariest days of my life, I felt this deep swirling pit of saddens that sucking me further an further down. I remember thinking, shouldn't this be easier the third time around? A silly thought now looking back, but I needed a thought to pull me out of this. To justify the thoughts that I was feeling were dramatic an I was hurting much more than what I needed to. After hours of crying holding my phone in my hand waiting for someone, anyone to call to check to see how the day had went. The phone didn't ring. so I called my best friend, my husband with me screaming crying that I needed him and on the other end I got the man that I married working, consumed with work. I don't know  what I expected to hear come from the other side of that phone, but what ever verbal medicine that my heart was aching for, to ease my pain was not being said.

And I was devastated. Me and this man had been thru a hell of a lot crap the last few years and I needed him damn it.

I realize now that god did that on purpose that day. Because I am a mother of two toddlers and I am not the center of my husbands world anymore because of that I don't have a week or two of crying in this life of mine. I need to go thru this myself.

Late that night my phone rang it was my friend Jess. We don't talk often, but when we do it seems like she is always picking me up off the floor, going me advice with this life of mine. She has no clue anything thy was going on with me. Didn't know I was pregnant nothing. She just knew I hadn't been online or answering my cell phone. Didn't say "you can adopt" "at least you have your girls" or judge me for my thought of being sad I was having another baby. She told me this sucks, that not now but soon everything will be ok, offered to come clean my kitchen and do my laundry, she would pray for me, and that she loved me. I will never, and haven't expressed to her what that call did to me. I was in a scary place, that I never seen before and she was liferaft I needed to pull me out of that place.

God knew I needed a little something, and Jess was that little something I needed. I had to pick myself up because all of that "crap" I've gone thru the last few year have me this family I have now. Yes I could have 5, children right now; but I have 2. TWO beautiful healthy daughters. And because of that "crap" I know that I am a better mom  and person because of it.

The point of this was tell you, is everyone grieves differently. I had to carry on and go to park and the library after I lost my baby; but I'm not missing my baby any less. My husband grieved in a way that I'm trying to figure out. Our marriage hit another huge, huge bump these past few months because if this. But..

& the typing ended. I found myself back into that pit of sadness. With the year approaching & some health problems I was having. I was back in that hole just sinking further & further. It was then I realized I hadn't forgave myself or my husband. I hadn't forgave myself for my feelings, my sadness. that depression. I hadn't forgiven my husband for how we coped differently. A month after we lost the baby we went to counselling & it helped so much to see his side, & like wise, mine. But I hadn't forgiven him. & most importantly I hadn't forgiven God. I've been so angry with him, so many why me's. & somehow after seeing myself back in that hole this past 8 weeks, & feeling like again I was alone; no one noticing. God showed me something. My husband. He may not have said the words I needed him to last year, but I know God gave him the words this time. He pulled me right out, & I saw him thru completely different eyes. That might sound so silly. But we were not the couple that got stronger with infertility & losing babies. It did very much the opposite. 

During this time, I got emails, texts & a run in with someone I barely knew all of which thanked me that I had posted about story, some had gone thru the same thing & some just made them more thankful for what they had.

I was going down that hole again but not this time. I was beginning to see why maybe we have gone thru this. 

We were strong. I am strong. I have now forgiven myself, my husband, & God,

& in all of it realizing God had forgiven me for ever doubting our marriage, me, my body or him!

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