photo 20

I took Reagan and Levi to a pumpkin patch a few weeks ago with some MOPS friends. It was a bright, sunny day in the midst of all our recent gray, rainy days. But, nothing was dry. The floor mats in the van clearly tell of our adventure. After an almost catastrophy involving the tunnel-like hay maze and a missing child, I just didn't have it in me to let the kids run around in the mud pit pumpkin field, so we found a box of itty-bitty pumpkins on our way out. You know, the kind you can buy at any grocery store this time of year. In fact, as we walked up, a man was pouring about 50 of these little orange fruits into a bucket from a store-bought bag. So much for authentic! The kids didn't care and neither did I, at that point. Levi picked his special pumpkin and I let Libs pick hers and Addi's. She grabbed a nicely shaped, blemish-free one, making sure it was the biggest since it was for her big sister. Levi had also picked a "pretty" pumpkin with a cute stem. Her last pick was for herself. Of course, she needed one that was sized in between Addi's and Levi's. And, she only had about 150 from which to choose. However, she picked one covered in mold. The more I pointed out what was wrong with her pumpkin, the more adamant she was in keeping that ugly, little thing. She loved it because "it's my favorite!"* So, we brought them home and I cleverly arranged the pumpkins with her decaying fruit behind its gleaming siblings. Now it's even more hidden because it's withered away to almost nothing because we placed the pumpkin she brought home from preschool (also notably "damaged"...do you see the missing stem?) where it would hide the rotten one even more! My plan was to take the kids to a pumpkin patch near our house to get bigger, carving pumpkins. We did make it to that patch, but had so much fun (and spent so much time) with all the activities, we didn't get a chance to pick out big pumpkins. They had all sizes, shapes, and colors. I had my pumpkin topiary all designed in my head and since the place is about a quarter-mile down the road from our house I quickly relented when Bryan suggested we leave before we picked out our pumpkins. After all, I still had a few weeks to run by there and pick out the beauties I would need for the front porch. Well, today is Halloween and I never got my pumpkins. We still have a sad collection of mini squashes sitting next to my crispy basil which made it through a Texas summer only to be left under the porch during the 28 days of October we've had rain. My pots hold the only plants that haven't flourished to jungle-like proportions with all this water. And that would be why Southern Living will never be calling me to do an article about my beautiful gardens. Nevertheless, it is October 31. The costumes are ready. The kids are pumped. The weather is great. And our orange friends can be turned into pumpkin pie tomorrow. (Not really, I've tried that before and buying canned pumpkin is so worth it! But, Libby wants to make pumpkin pie from her pumpkins...yeah, even the rotten one...gross! She's not winning that argument.) See you back tomorrow with pictures from tonight!

The largest of our collection is Reagan's from her preschool party. She was carefully decorating it when I asked her why her pumpkin was stem-less. "Reagan, all your friends' pumpkins have stems. Did you pick one without or did you break the stem off?" She matter-of-factly replied, "That's what happens to your pumpkin when you drop it one too many times." Well, there you go!
*I know there's so much I could do with that...As tarnished and ugly as sin makes us, God still adamantly loves us...I would love to tell anyone about His love, but Mr. Man is waking up and I can't type it all out now. I'll link you to this though. You're welcome to email me if you've got questions.