Tis the season to be grateful.

Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween and seeing all of the cute babies dressed up like animals with tails that drag behind them down the street, but Thanksgiving (and Fall in general) reminds me that it's important to be grateful.

DISCLAIMER: I will say one thing I loathe about Halloween is the 3 weeks leading up to it, where I devour every last cookies n' cream hershey bar and reese's cup in sight. No worries, I'll restock before the 31st. Scratch that. I will restock ON the 31st to ensure I can't possibly eat that entire batch of candy as well. 

Anyways, life is just really good right now, and sometimes I have to remind myself of that. I can't help but think that I will look back at this exact moment in time years from now and say, "Gosh, those were the days. I would give anything to go back."

These are the days. The days where Graham is constantly hitting new milestones and learning to do new things like walk and talk, days where Chris and I both worked our butts off but loved every minute of it because we enjoy our jobs, and days we spend with our families and realize that nothing makes us happier than to grow in our relationships with our parents and siblings now that we're all adults. 

It's so easy to get wrapped up in the daily grind and think, "Ugh, I'm so stressed out" or "I wish we made just a little more money so we could afford x, y, or z", but when I step back and look at our lives, I realize we have everything we could possibly need and then some. We have a roof over our heads, reliable transportation, jobs that we actually enjoy, a beautiful son, and a church where we are planting roots. Everything else is just a bonus. 

Sometimes it takes a real hardship in the family to make you realize you're blessed beyond imagination--and indeed we've had some hardships in both our families recently--but faith and gratefulness have seen us through these times and continue to do so. 

Isn't it funny how as you grow older your dreams evolve and change? I remember when I was much younger dreaming of a big fancy house, traveling all over the world, etc., but what I didn't factor into my dreams was the husband and kids, because I just assumed that was a "given".

Boy was I wrong.

There are women who have lost their husbands in the line of duty, men who have lost their wives to cancer, and couples who are facing heartbreak and hardship every day as they try and try to conceive. None of these are "givens". They are blessings. 

I'm so grateful for our health, and never want to take that for granted.

I'm grateful for a supportive and loving husband, who makes me laugh EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

I'm grateful for our beautiful son, who makes my world light up every morning when he flashes me that sleepy smile and claps for his morning toast.

I'm grateful for Chris' family, who welcomed me in with open arms and didn't say, "Chris, you're crazy!" after proposing to me 11 months into our relationship (at least I don't think they said that...). 

I'm grateful for my family, who love me and are brutally honest when I need it, despite knowing how stubborn I am. (And quite frankly, grateful for a mother that didn't go running for the hills at any point while raising 3 hormonal daughters). 

All in all, these days are wonderful, beautiful, and flying by. I hope to always remember these days through photographs like these, and to remember just how blessed our lives have been.

​These are the days. 

We visited Rombach Pumpkin Patch and had sooo much fun. I'm pretty sure Graham thought the pumpkins were balls, which explains why he wanted to touch and play with EVERY SINGLE PUMPKIN (he was clearly too busy focusing on the pumpkins to look up at the camera).

One of the wonderful things about fall is that pumpkins make it so easy to decorate your home, which allows you to appear as a festive, put-together mom (when in reality you're an over-worked, over-tired, and forgetful mess, buy hey--pumpkins!).