Pumpkins, Pies

Was a full out Fall weekend at our house. Was one of those weekends where I realize the kids are growing up and we will start finding ourselves in Fall traditions that they look forward to and understand. I'm already seeing her father come out in Eleanor...she loves pumpkins - says hello to them in the morning, good night and I love you when she tucks them in.

We started off Friday night with the carving of the pumpkins - this is all about Matt. Pumpkins, mess, knives - he loves it. I've become my mother's daughter and don't want the goop and the mess. But this year with the two littles... I played ball - I have a feeling next year may look the same too. We cut, gutted, scraped, carved, and admired our work before Matt cleaned up the mess. Here's what I learned this year... the kids love a good tool - they did not like the wimpy spoons. They wanted big spoons and the spaghetti grabber. I'm not sure what Grady loved more - helping with the pumpkins or standing on the table. This worked really well until he started slipping on pumpkin guts and started falling all over the place. We even let E "color" her little pumpkin as we needed a little entertainment while Matt and I worked to finish carving the faces. Grady was content eating the pumpkin pieces that we carved out.

On Saturday, Matt and E baked pies. Every once in awhile Matt gets an itching for baking - which is fine but it's not messy and it's also the reason we installed the rule, bakers do their own dishes. They made apple pies together - E kept eating the apples and the dough but it did come together well. That night we went to the Pumpkin Unparade at the Patch... our official last visit for the year to the patch.

Sunday morning, E helped us make pumpkin pie pancakes (we had fresh pumpkin that Matt had harvested) E had 5 pancakes - which is a lot for her and considering I had 4, Matt had 6. It's not often she outeats her brother who I've seen eat two tacos, corn,
grapes, and a 1/2 gallon of milk at a meal. That afternoon, he finalized the pumpkin theme and made pumpkin pie too. E helped and rolled out a cinnamon sugar crust. We had it for supper, I think she overworked it a bit.

All getting into the car.
MJR: SO what is this?
ALR: It's an unparade, we are going to drive through and look at the jackolanterns.
MJR: How do you know it's a drive through?
ALR: It said something about paying by the carful.
MJR: Do we need to put shoes on the kids?
ALR: Nah.
Get to the Patch.
MJR: Why are they telling us to park?
MJR: Why are there people walking around outside?
ALR: Um....
MJR: I have a feeling it's not like you said.
ALR: Um....
MJR: We don't have shoes or socks for the kids. 
ALR: If we go back home and come back, they will fall asleep.
ALR: Let's look through the car and see what we have.
1 pair of mittens and 2 blankets.
ALR: Okay, we'll put the mittens on Grady's feet and wrap them up in blankets in the stroller.
MJR: I see we are going to parent of the year awards here.
ALR: We are going and we will have fun.