Pumpkin Picking & Carving // Family Pictures

all photos by fuzebox photography

Family pictures are always beautiful, aren't they? They're these beautiful stills of a family and lives being lived. 

Sure, life may not always include throwing confetti, or walks hand and hand through the woods, or an entire family pumpkin patch day, but they are shots of what we wish and long for life to be. We long to all take off and enjoy a day at a pumpkin patch with family. And we long to have the time and intention to walk hand in hand with our love through a forest in the fall. Whatever said family or couple pictures hold, they're glimpses of what we long for life to look like. And at the very same time they're pictures of what actual life does look like, too. We may not always have the time or the forest or the pumpkin patch to walk through, but we do laugh, make memories and smile with the ones we love, and that's really what the pictures are all about capturing anyway, isn't it?

One of the silver linings to this horrible disease of cancer, is that on that day at the end of May 2015, life lived together and these family moments became intentional and priority.

This day, picking pumpkins, was photographed. But by God's grace and unfailing love towards us, the 17 months we battled Pancreatic Cancer as a family, looked a lot like these photos. Memories made. Memories lived. Life lived. With intention.

 

 When cancer enters the scene, it's like something slaps us in the face and tells us to wake up! Wake up! Live every day like it's the last. Or in my mother's words on a Facebook album she posted with glimpses of these very photos, 2 weeks before she passed away;

"Please always know God has a plan and we have to trust and have faith! And always be joyful and smile. Don't sweat the small stuff it's so unimportant! Please always know God has a plan and we have to trust and have faith! And always be joyful and smile. Don't sweat the small stuff it's so unimportant!"

I'll leave you with that (and with the photos of the rest of our day). With the wise, yet simple, and so very joy-filled words of my beautiful mother.

Thank you for reading and making it through all those photos! I know there's usually tons of pictures around here but these are especially lovely and bless my heart. So, thank you for scrolling through them. Love you guys.

Also, a HUGE thank you to Linda of fuzebox photography. We are forever grateful for these beautiful pictures.