Sharing Halloween with our future kiddos is something I have looked forward to LONG before I actually even thought about having said kiddos. So when we found out that we were pregnant with RJ the beginning of October P and I had a lot of fun thinking up all our plans for the next year. The best family costume options, planning the pumpkin patch we would go to and how we could eat all the babe's candy. So sweet and so innocent. It didn't even cross our minds that our babe wouldn't be with us for Halloween. Those carefree moments are something I reflect back on often. During my pregnancy with Redd we would try to create moments like those but the same authentic joy and excitement just wasn't there. My heart couldn't quite go all in yet.

Our 1st Halloween without RJ was P.A.I.N.F.U.L.!!!!! It felt like we were losing him all over again when instead of celebrating with our boy we were stuck watching all our friends celebrate instead. I think that was the first Halloween in my whole life that I didn't dress up.

Our 2nd Halloween without RJ I was a few weeks pregnant with Redd. My dad was in Portland on business---which was the perfect distraction for us! We weren't ready to really celebrate or think about future Halloweens but a visit to the pumpkin patch and getting some baby pumpkins to take to RJ was fun. We still didn't dress up but our hearts didn't hurt quite as bad.

So to say we were SUPER excited to celebrate this year....would be an understatement! Redd even had a few different costumes because we couldn't decide on just one ;)