Pumpkin Hunting

I don't know about you, but I am sure sick of all those serious posts.  My brain is fried.  I'm done with them, at least for a while, so here's some plain old easy reading for you.  

On Saturday, my mom and I grabbed the boys and trekked over to the Pittsburgh area to meet my family at Riley's Summer Seat Farm (click to view) to search for pumpkins and enjoy the fall/Halloween festivities.  We've gone the last three or four years, and the kids always have a good time.  We took a hay ride to the pumpkin patches, where the kids traipsed through some serious mud in order to find the best pumpkins ever.  Luckily, this year all of the kids were easy to please, and we had our hands full of plump, round pumpkins within half an hour.  We loaded them back onto the tractor and rode down to the area surrounding the greenhouse, where all of the festivities were.  The kids had a great time playing games, going down the big slide, feeding the animals in the petting zoo (well, Ella wasn't so wild about the petting zoo, come to think of it), and eating lots of goodies.  When we were done, we ate dinner at my aunt's house.  Usually we stay over night when we go to Pittsburgh, but mom and I both had a lot to do this weekend, so we decided to drive back.  She drove, of course, because I am blind as a bat at night.  

This morning, I ironed 2 weeks worth of clothes for myself and the boys, made as much of our lunches as I could, and made 5 meals to make in the crock pot and froze them in bags for later use.  All of that on top of the routine stuff - bathroom, cat box, laundry, kitchen cleaning, etc.  I am just about finished with my weekend cleaning, but I need a break.  I don't know how people who are disorganized, or not planners, make it through life.  Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all of the stuff I feel like I need to do in advance.  Believe it or not, there are times when I just let stuff go by the wayside, but I always, always, always regret when I do that.  If I don't plan meals, then we eat crap, because I'm too tired to cook, let alone plan, dinners when I get home from work.  This house is big, and I can just imagine the mess if I didn't have a cleaning and organizing schedule (including, most importantly, frequent purging of unnecessary stuff).  Mornings are hectic enough as it is, and I can't imagine how much worse they would be if I didn't have all of our clothes laid out, lunches packed, etc.  I try to remind myself of that when I feel like saying, "To hell with it, I'm not planning today."  I know that I am going to be glad later this week and next week, when I am be able to say, "Oh, I have those crock pot bags ready to make!"  And the 5 bags alone will feed us for 10 days, giving us at least 2 days worth of dinner each.  Yay!

Anyway, I digress.  I didn't intend to write about my cleaning and cooking routine.  I meant to just show you some pictures from our day of fun yesterday.  Here they are:

Vampire teeth!

No one gets to the pumpkins without first answering to the big black cat! 

What a handsome little pumpkin picker! 

"Mom, this one is part watermelon."  (Yes, he actually said that!) 

Andrew had to forgo this one.  As much as he loved it, he couldn't lift it.  

Jake, on the other hand, grabbed the biggest pumpkin in the patch! 

I love this picture ~ 'These pumpkins are stinkin' heavy!" 

Jake does his "Ehhh...what's up doc" impersonation.

The cousins (and a friend of Ella's) with their treasures.

Brynn had fun watching the kids.

Andrew's a natural vampire...except for being able to tolerate the sunlight, of course.

A little bashful with the face painting girl...

...but very proud of his bat when she was done!

Happy bat boy

Kid sized corn mazes can be a little tricky for adults! 

Jacob was happy as a squirrel with a nut when he found hot apple cider and dry, over-done hamburgers! Mmmm! 

Slide time! 

"What's this thing called, Mimi?  It looks weird." 

"Uh...are you sure I'll like it?"

"You were right!  It's delicious!  Help me make another!"  (No, it wasn't really his first roasted marshmallow.  I'm just being silly!)

Jake took a turn down the slide too, and then promptly fell into a puddle of mud.  Luckily it was towards the end of our trip, so he didn't have to spend the entire time walking around with what looked like, well, you know what, on his pants!