You may or may not recall that a significant motivator for buying the farm a year ago was the aspiration to own a pumpkin patch. This year was supposed to be our pumpkin patch trial run. I selected about 5 different varieties of pumpkins and gave them a huge area in the Southern-most part of the South garden. We had gorgeous vines going mid-Summer. Then, suddenly, squash bugs happened. All was lost.
So going into this Fall season pumpkin-less has been kind of bittersweet. Still, we wanted to do some fun Fall activities with the family and my sister-in-law Taylor is pretty much the best as planning that kind of thing out. Sunday afternoon, we gathered at my mom’s house for the kids to carve, decorate and eat chili in true Fall style.
Isai’s first pumpkin carving was a riot. He was totally into the guts and seeds. We even gave him a tiny scoop. He essentially used it as a spoon, but whatever. He wasn’t deterred by the raw pumpkin and was more than proud of his final creation!
Rhett and Tanner are old pros at this by now and it was seriously cool to see how much they were really into it. They drew, cut and punched chunks of pumpkin through to create super cool carvings. Then, with lights added, we snapped some photos of the 3 under 4 in mom’s kitchen.
Along the way, mom reminded us that Chris and I never carved pumpkins as kids. We had them – I remember going to pumpkin patches and tree farms. But yea – I don’t remember carving them. She said she just never knew how so we never did it.
After the pumpkins, we decorated cookies from the Wildflour Bakery in Leavenworth. Taylor picked them up (along with amazing cinnamon rolls for lunch) and we went to down with our own kits. Once again, Isai went to town. I helped him with a single cookie. His fingers instantly started taking swipes of frosting. By the time I finished frosting the other 5 cookies – he had eaten the first one and was well on his way toward a sugar crash.
The boys had an awesome afternoon playing at Nana’s and getting into the Halloween spirit just a few days before the official trick-or-treating begins. As always, we’re so excited that being closer to “home” allows us to do things like this with our family and Isai’s cousins. It’s fun to see these amazing boys growing up so close together.