They say absence makes the heart grow fonder

*Ahem.*

I'm... back? I think?

Because of the risk of being extremely redundant I will not offer any excuse for my absence. I will recap with this:

We carved pumpkins.


I broke my nose, and this is one of the only images I will offer of that awesome time:


We made lots of pumpkin spice lattes.


We visited the fire station.


A family shot with another lovely black and blue image.


Our daredevil baby:


The leaves offered some lovely afternoon photos. They also kept Lucas busy what with all the raking and jumping he did.


Being a toddler can be a little painful. I think we're growing out of this stage, though I will say that Owen's nickname is "Moose" and let you deduct the reasons why.


That is a small summary of our autumn, and I just KNOW that all (two) of you were waiting on pins and needles for this post. Um... or something.

The other thing that was kind of a big deal for us this fall was the *almost* selling our house thing. And *almost* being able to buy another (amazing) house before our seller walked in the final hour. And then realizing (again) that sometimes things don't turn out as planned, that this may not turn out better than expected, and sometimes - just because that's what happens in our world - we get dealt a crappy card.

We allow ourselves to feel disappointment. Perhaps shed a tear or say an angry word or submit a 'grocery list' type of prayer to the great beyond. And then we take a big breath, count our many, many blessings and we continue on. We relearn what kinds of prayers to pray - the ones that count. The prayers of peace, of thanksgiving, of contentment. We learn valuable lessons in the midst of our disappointment, the lessons of generosity, of graciousness.

And that's all I'm going to say for now.