smile like you're having fun.

So when the fall leaves start changing to their beuatiful red, yellow and gold colors my first thought is that we just neeeeeeeeed to get family portraits. I envision Simon and I holding hands along a scenic trail glowing with joy...our kids will be following close behind and and doing all sorts of candid adorable things like kissing each other and burying each other in crisp crunchy leaves as the fall sunshine shines down.

I got so excited when my uber-talented-at-everything sister offered to do our family pictures one sunny Saturday morning but when I tell my wonderful husband, he looks at me like he rather go to the dentist. I actually think he might have called his dentist to see if he could get that root canal changed to Saturday morning. I don't think there is any activity he loathes more than family photos but alas, he is awesome and tells me that even though he doesn't see the point of taking family photos again ("we did them LAST year?! Why do we need more?! Everyone looks almost the same!) he will smile like he wasn't hating every moment of it.

And well when it came to picture day, let's just say I am so grateful for everyone's patience and Welch's fruit gummies because without either, these photos would of not happened and all that would have been captured would be one blurry girl who just wanted to run with her stuffed doggy, Coconut; a miserable boy who couldn't catch up to his much faster sister and kept falling along the trail; an exasperated husband who was telepathically asking me 'are we done yet?' and me - who was pretending like we were all really have F.U.N. and that this wasn't a totally terrible idea.

So with further ado, I present to you some of my favorites..I really love these photos and I am so glad we captured these because I don't think anyone is up for more family pictures for awhile.....

growing up pumpkins.

I finally realized why I love the the pumpkin patch. It's not because it takes way longer to get there than a trip to Superstore for a pumpkin, not the over priced admission, or the 2 minute tractor ride, or the animals in the barns. Its because we go every year and there are picture perfect moments everywhere. The beautiful fall colors with the bright orange pumpkins and throw in my little crazy babes, I can't stop taking pictures. Now I have enough pictures of 4 years of pumpkin patching just to truly appreciate how quickly my beautiful pumpkins are growing up!

I remember two years ago when Noah was born, he was only 4 weeks old and I was determined to make it out the pumpkin patch. It took an hour to drive out to Abbotsford and it was so stressful. I was trying to breastfeed my newborn while traisping thru the pumpkin fields and negotaiting with my toddler which pumpkins were too big to take home. Then  trying to keep a baby asleep in the carrier while carrying a toddler on my hip (who was too tired to walk anymore) and hauling a big pumpkin in the other hand. I seriously was questioning why I did not just to go Safeway.  But I am glad I did because now I know that its true that moms (especially of Little Ones) possess super powers and that I have photographic evidence of these escapades.

Last year Grandma and Grandpa had to hold Noah's hands through the pumpkin patch because he couldn't even walk on his own yet. This year his go-to phrase is "No Help!!!" and when I try to help him he likes to hold up his hands up high like this photo (on the right) which is his way of signing "I'm BIG and I don't need help!!!"

 And in this photo down here, I see that little Miss Natallie changed so much from baby to age 3 and apparently has stopped growing taller or bigger since 2014. Ha ha. She is wearing the exact same coat (size 3) as last year and I think it might still fit her next year. I know based on how tall Simon and I are we aren't expecting her to be on the school basketball team but I hope she will at least be tall enough so she can go in the ball pit at Ikea one day.

And this photo here just makes me smile. I can't believe 3 years ago I was just cuddling my little pumpkin and now she is so big (well not size-wise big) but bigger than she was used to be and continues to radiant joy into our lives.

I am so looking forward to doing this every year...at least until the kids are old enough to tell me that it's totally stupid to drive such a long way and pay too much money just to take pictures with some pumpkins. Then I will start taking pictures of us with pumpkins at the grocery store instead.