Pumpkins, Pumpkins, and More Pumpkins!

I love this time of year! Fall is just the best - okay, well maybe not as great as Christmas time, but it's definitely a close second! :) I just love fall weather, the leaves changing colors, and pumpkins! It's just a fun time of year! Unfortunately though, we haven't really done anything fun for Halloween the past couple of years. On Gavin's first Halloween, I wasn't even home - I went to Thriller with my best friend Kyla and her husband! And then last year, Gavin didn't want to go trick-or-treating, let alone even get in his costume, so once again, we did nothing but pass out candy. In fact, we didn't even buy pumpkins last year! Sad... I know. So this year, now that Gavin is older and really into Halloween, we decided we'd better get with it and make it a fun time for him! :) So here's what we've been up to...

Of course, we went to the Dinosaur Park last Friday (if you didn't see our last blog, it will tell you all about it), and we had a great time there. Then, on Saturday, we went up to Greg's parent's house for the weekend. We haven't been up there since the cruise, so we thought it was about time! Well, every year, they go to the local pumpkin patch up there and pick out their own pumpkins. Now, growing up in the city (compared to Greg who grew up in a town with a population of 5,000), this was a very new thing to me. My dad just always grew ours in the garden or we bought them at the store! And honestly, I only remember carving pumpkins once or twice as a young girl and the rest of the time, we just colored them with markers. (I never knew why this was, but I've learned this year (don't ask me why I never knew it before...) that we never carved them because Lindsay is allergic to pumpkins! ) Anyway, I thought it was so much fun to go pick your own! All of them were so perfectly round (I swear the farmers were out there turning them everyday...) and Gavin loved picking out his own. So once again, I want to start this as a tradition (if there are even pumpkin patches around here) because I just thought it was a lot of fun! Plus, once we got home and got comparing the 2 pumpkins we got up there with the 2 more expensive ones we bought a while ago at Harmons, I realized that they were just much better pumpkins all around...

Well, now that we had 4 pumpkins - one for every member of the family - we decided we obviously needed to carve them! Now, Greg is all about getting down and dirty and having his hands be a complete mess (which can probably be attributed to his rural Idaho upbringing...), but Gavin and I... well, let's just say we like to stay clean! :) So the second Gavin put his hand in the first pumpkin to help Greg clean it out, he pulled it right back out and started crying, saying it was yucky! Ha ha. I, on the other hand, cleaned out an entire pumpkin by myself and was extremely proud! Granted, I stopped after that... but hey, at least I faced my fear. :) I just decided that washing and cooking pumpkin seeds sounded like a much better idea to me! So we let Greg get to work designing all of them and carving them (yes, the poor guy, he did them all by himself, but at least he enjoyed it). On his pumpkin, he did what would be expected - a VW sign! On mine, we did an A. I was originally meaning for it to be an A for Aggies, but I guess it could be A for Ashlee too. Gavin and Ty's are typical pumpkin faces, but Ty's is a little bit happier and smilier since that's just how he is all the time! In the end, we had a really great time, even though Greg did most of the work! :)

Now that we are one day away from Halloween, Gavin is getting more excited by the minute for trick-or-treating (and I am getting more nervous about running out of candy again since we ran out after 30 minutes last year!). It just hit me today how bummed he is going to be when Halloween is over this year! So I guess we better keep enjoying it right up until the second it is over. And we will! Until next time! -Ash (Check out the other pictures below.)

Gavin, the little cheeser... This was about 10 minutes into walking around the pumpkin patch. I think he enjoyed walking around it more than he did picking his own pumpkin!

Greg, working hard...

Me, working hard...

And Gavin... not working at all!

And here they are... the finished product! Good job, Greg!