Like We Used To

There is a house to clean
And groceries to be bought.
There is a school week to plan
And 'to do' lists to be made.

But the sun is shining.
Oh, how that sun calls me!
The rainy season is almost upon us.
I know what this means for me.
I have lived through this kind of thing before.

So when the sun beckons
And calls me out of doors.
I surrender.
Because of all of the healing things I am learning
And relearning about - the sun is at the top of that list.

As I try to slow down
And listen to the quiet voice within
I know that when it pull me in one direction
I must go.

I take them to a farm.
We pick out pumpkins and some apple cider too!
And I watch them from behind as we wander through a corn maze.
I remember the days gone by.
I remember the little years and the laughter left in the corn stalks.
I remember all of Halloween things we used to do.
And I bring myself back to the present
Because I am trying to remember THAT is where the gift truly is.
It is not in the past.
It is in the right now.

And so I watch them again.
This time from right where I am at.
We laugh together and have fun.
The five of us together.
And I thank the kind of God that would bless me with these four souls.

Nice photo - Josh. 

He is making this face because there is dirt on the underside of this pumpkin. He hates dirt/sand/nature. 

The deal with the pumpkins was that the kids could get any pumpkin they wanted so that as they could carry it back to the car. This Mama's done with carrying their pumpkins. And because we believe that Sarah is a fully capable human being this applied to her as well. These next few pictures show her carrying her massive pumpkin and us laughing the whole time - me so much so that I snorted which only made us laugh even harder. 

Josh trying to maneuver his pumpkin so he didn't have to touch the dirt. 

Elizabeth didn't find the right one out in the patch, so she got hers from the pile of already selected pumpkins out front.