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Autumn Loving.

There are only 20 days more until the first day of autumn!!!!!  
Autumn: my absolute favorite time of year. When leaves are turning and crisp apples are becoming pies and jellies and applesauce. When it’s finally time for colorful scarves, pumpkin spice lattes, long walks in sweaters and the smell of new textbooks.
When hay bales are scattering the “back 40” and you can see your breath puff into little clouds on chilly evenings.

It’s pumpkins and corn on the cob and cozying up with the one you love under a fuzzy blanket, looking up at the stars.
A time for giving thanks.
For freezing and hunting and preserving.
It’s the start of Christmas lists and math sums and bright red mittens.
It’s sunflowers and Jack Frost and the backbreaking work of digging up potatoes.
It’s football and candles and, at our home, one of the most significant and special days of the year.

Our Anniversary.



Seven years ago, today, I married my best friend. The love of my life: the man who I couldn’t imagine living another day without.

We stood together, with sunflowers and loved ones surrounding us. Vowing before God to love and serve each other faithfully until the end of our days.

We had no idea what marriage would be like. Everyone said that we were too young, that we should wait, that it would be so hard.

And it was.

It was both harder and more incredible than either of us ever imagined.

God carried us through those early days. Days when Josh would come home and find me “in the shadow lands” lying on the bathroom floor, crying my eyes out.
Days when jealousy raged in us, when trust was thin and tempers were high. When we made foolish choices and didn’t know how to handle the consequences.

And He has continued to carry us through five years of pregnancies and newborns and sleepless nights. Of lost jobs and a lost little one. Of potty training and budgeting and growing contentment. Of new friendships and joys and discoveries about ourselves and each other. Good years, where we’ve learned to trust and talk and give Him our burdens. Where we have been learning when to fight and when to let it go.

We made it seven years!!!
Eighty-four months. Two thousand, five hundred and fifty five days. Sixty-one thousand, three hundred and twenty hours.  Three million, six hundred and seventy nine thousand, two hundred minutes. (but who’s counting)

This song by Andrew Petersen is so fitting to sum up our journey so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gs3fg_WsEg

You are still my best friend, Josh! And I really couldn’t imagine going another day without you even now.

Here’s to you, my patient, funny, loving man, who lifts me up when I am down, who laughs with me at my shortcomings and dreams big dreams for our future. Who sees the good in everyone (even when it is barely there), who lends and hand to anyone who asks, who accepts me unconditionally and even finds this post-baby body beautiful. Who loves our kids and gets down on the floor to wrestle and tickle-attack them. Who works a full day to provide for us and yet still gets up in the night with hugs and prayers for nightmares and puke and hungry babies.

You are an amazing man. Your boys want to be superhero daddies like you when they grow up. Your girls are happy to be your princesses. You are loved.

Here’s to as many more years as He’ll give us to dance in the minefields together!

I love you.


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