Pumpkin Patch on Plantation

 Following tradition we headed to the wonderful pumpkin patch on plantation.  This time around we were lucky enough to not only have a coupon for a $10 pumpkin but also to have daddy with us!  We chose tonight because we figured it would be a fabulous-o FHE….and we were right! 

When arriving Lily and Allie were so excited to see everything.  They had to stop at all things they saw.  I was overjoyed when they asked to take a picture each time they stopped.  It was nice to not have to beg pictures from them. 

Our first stop was at this sign saying Children’s Pumpkin Patch.

Next we stopped at some fun cutouts

Allie quickly found this fun setup of hay and pumpkins to sit on.

Lily ran off and found a friend.  She asked to have her picture taken with him. LOL!

Allie saw Lily’s friend so she had to find her own.  She copied Lily’s pose exactly then yelled, “MAAAAAA!!!!” until I turned around and took her picture.  Silly girl!

 We ran around some more and took a few more fun pictures.

This one is probably my favorite of all the pictures we took.  There is just something about the way they are looking at the camera that makes me smile!

We finally got around to picking out pumpkins.  Lily chose her big one, the only big one we bought since it was free!    I wanted to do my glitter pumpkins again this year so I allowed Allie and Lily to pick out a few small pumpkins for me.  Unfortunately Allie wouldn’t hold still long enough to show me hers, and all I got was a blurry Allie! LOL!

 

Lily on the other hand held still for this cute picture of the ones she chose.

When it was time to go, Allie got the privilege of pulling our wagon full of pumpkins to the car.  Lily was feeling “sisterly” and gave Allie a hug before she could get very far.

Bye-bye until next year!

Pumpkin' Carving

Normally the day before Halloween we carve our pumpkins.  They barely last until Halloween night so we can light them.  This year we asked around and people said we could carve our pumpkins earlier than that, but only by a few days or the pumpkins would mold.  Things mold fast when you live in a swamp :D  Because we were so busy this week we split up the carving of the pumpkins.  Whenever we had 30 mins or so we would carve one out.  I was sad that we didn't get to do them all together :(

 Russ was the first to go.  He is amazingly fast at gutting and carving a pumpkin.  He got his and Allie's done in like 45 mins.  I was quite impressed.  I also was disappointed that we didn't let Allie help with hers, but really we had no choice.  Later on he helped Lily clean hers out.

After that Russ let Lily do most of the hole poking and carving of her pumpkin.  This was the first year that she really got to carve her pumpkin!  Somewhere admists making a costume and cleaning the house, I carved my pumpkin.  Unfortunately, Lily took the picture of me doing that.  {The second picture gives a little sneek peek to what my costume was}

Finally, tonight we were able to light our beautiful pumpkins up.  We had to light them on the curb in the parking lot though, because we have lights on all night in the stairwell of our apartment.  Before being lighted...

Ooky, spooky goodness!

Individual shots starting with Russell's skeleton....

My mummy....

Lily's witch...

Allie's goblin, monster....

When we lit these up we had to restrain Allie from touching.  She would point keep pointing at the pumpkins, and yelling, "Oooo! Wow!"  She wanted to touch them sooooo bad!  I remembered to get a picture of the pumpkins the kids painted to post along with this.

Pumpkin Jack looks like he is protecting the girls pumpkins so noone will smash them!

Pumpkin Jack

Last year at Target I ran across the cutest decoration for a pumpkin.  I didn't have enough money to buy at the time, so I figured I would buy it two days later when we got payed.  By the time I got back three days later all of the decoration was gone.  So imagine my pure joy when I walked into Target at the end of September and saw my decoration back again!  I instantly snapped it up.  I wish I could have got all five versions of it, but I will settle for my Pumpkin Jack!  Who is Pumpkin Jack?  Enjoy watching Pumpkin Jack come to life!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Argh!!!!!!!

Painting Pumpkins

Soon after I got my crafty glitter pumpkins done, Lily started begging to paint her pumpkins.  I kept putting it off, because I honestly didn't know why I had let them by pumpkins to paint.  I didn't want to make a big mess with them doing that!  Ugh!  But then I had a conversation with a lady that I walk with this morning.  We discussed how we should make life enjoyable for our kids, and what kind of things we could do to make their time on earth enjoyable.  After that conversation I vowed that we would paint pumpkins TODAY. 

I was a little nervous giving Allie a paint brush with actual paint on it, but I just reassured myself that I would watch her REALLY good. I was surprised when Allie took the paintbrush dipped it in the paint and happily painted her pumpkin.

What mom?  You thought I would eat this stuff? {Evil laughter}  Not even two seconds after I took this picture, Allie put the paint in her mouth.  She realized it was gross, spit it out, and didn't do it again!

Close up of the chubby fingers at work

Allie was done with her pumpkin after three minutes or so. Lily on the other hand took about 30 mins.  She had to try every color we owned on it!  But she was so proud of her pumpkin. Look at her smile over it!

 

Stupid me didn't take a finished picture of them, but I have a few more pumpkin projects coming up.  When they are all finished I'll take a "group" shot with these darlings in them!

Glitter Pumpkins

When we were at the pumpkin patch, I bought four pumpkins for me to decorate.  It didn't take me long to get crafty!  Here is a step by step process of how to make glitter pumpkins!

Step 1: 

Gather your pumpkins.  I would suggest using small pumpkins if you are going to use real ones.  If you're going to pick up the fake craft pumpkins, get them on the larger side!

Step 2:  

Get some fall colored glitter.  I chose orange just because this was my first time around.  Next time I might add in some gold, green, or purple!  My bottle of glitter is 4 oz.  I used half the bottle to do my four pumpkings.

Step 3: 

Gather craft glue, an OLD sponge paint brush, wax paper, and brown lunch bag.

Step 4:

Place wax paper on working service.  Pour out a large amount of craft glue on you paper glue.  Grasp stem of pumpkin in hand.  Use other hand to dip sponge brush in glue, and then proceed to "paint" the glue on your pumpkin.  Do LARGE sections of the pumpkin.  I suggest 1/8th to 1/4th of the pumpkin at a time.

Step 5:

Sprinkle glitter all over glue area.  Pat glitter into the glue.  Resprinkle with glitter, pat glitter with glue. {NOTE:  I do not have three hands ;)  My daughter was shaking the glitter!}

You can also sprinkle a fair amount of glitter out on your wax paper, then roll the pumpkin it.  However, I still suggest doing the two coats of glitter.

Step 6: 

Repeat process of glue and glitter around the rest of the pumpkin.

Step 7:  Display and enjoy your glitter pumpkins.  {NOTE:  These should last through Thanksgiving!}

Pumpkin Patch

Down a block, across a major highway, and down another block is a local Lutheran church.  Every year (apparently this is true) they hundreds of pumpkins from a farm in New Mexico and then make a "pumpkin patch" of sorts on their spacious front yard of the church.  Most of the proceeds go to youth groups and the community.  When Russ and I heard about this we decided it would be fun to take the girls to it.  Sadly, before Russ left for California we didn't make it.  It actually didn't open until the day he left.  Shucks!

Last night tough I found out that our ward would be going there for play group this week.  I was so excited!  As we had made trips around town they had spied this little gem nestled across the road and had questioned when we would get to go there.  Well, today was the day!  It was nice and hot with a slight breeze.  Perfect for "picking" pumpkins!  I didn't get to talk much to the other ladies at playgroup because I was worried about watching Lily and Allie.  I didn't want them to accidentally wonder over to the busy road.  We still had a great time though!

Allie's eyes were HUGE when she saw the first pumpkins.

Besides the pumpkin patch, there were many little activities for kids.  This one consisted of a barnyard of animals.  Allie loved to point at the animals and make me say the sounds they say.

Lily quickly found this fun little tunnel surrounded by the "big pumpkins"

We got stuck at the flower pinwheels for about 10 minutes.  Allie loved to bat at them and make them spin.  It is so funny to watch her get pleasure out of such simple things.

Later on Allie found the caterpillar too.  It took me ANOTHER 10 mins to convince her to come out.  She sat in the middle of it and just smiled at me while looking around.

The kids didn't get to play in this house very much.  It was swarmed with mosquitos.  Lily's legs got eaten alive!!!

It was getting to be lunch time so I forced the kids to go pick a little pumpkin.  The big ones were too expensive, but the smaller ones were cheaper than what you would find at Wal-Mart!  Allie kept looking at me to check and see if it was really okay to pick one up! LOL!

FINALLY, she picked one.

She handed it off to me and went to play on this cute little bench.  She sat and stared at her feet as she swung them back and forth.  It was as if she had never noticed she had feet before.

After careful consideration Lily settled on a pumpkin.  I couldn't resist getting a picture of them with all of our pumpkins.  Yep, I bought a few for me to decorate :)

While the moms were paying for the pumpkins the girls decided to test run some of the wagons.  Lily was generous enough to pull since she was the oldest child there.

The sisters then wanted a ride together.  I love these two munchkins to death!  It melts my heart that they always want to be playing together. 

At this point everything went downhill because neither Allie or Lily wanted to leave, but I was dying of heat and insisted we go.  I dragged Allie screaming and bucking, and bribed Lily with the event of decorating the pumpkins all the way to our car.  It wouldn't be a normal day if at least ONE tantrum was thrown.