My First All Hallows Eve

Little Miss Sunshine was very tired at this point so I couldn't get her to smile. (Which is very unusual). She was ready for a nap before we got started on our pumpkins. But as soon as she saw the pumpkins come out, she didn't want to sleep! She stayed awake the whole time, feeling and studying the pumpkins and watching us paint and carve them. It was a lot of stimulation for her but I couldn't let her go to sleep without a "My First..." picture. It's a mothers duty, ya'know. ;)

Pumpkin Carving Escapades

It was a fun and eventful time while carving our pumpkins this year. Although at first, a bit discouraging. I spent a bit of time planning and tweaking a design for my pumpkin. I went with a flying dove, wings looking like fire (both symbols of the Holy Spirit) with the Triquetra (symbol of the Holy Trinity) behind it. But after sitting down to start, I realized my drawing was way too big for my pumpkin. (No, I didn't think to check the size before I started) And do you want to know the ugly truth? I sat and pouted about it for much longer than any grown woman should. I really didn't want to re-draw my design to a smaller size. So, after wasting much time feeling sorry for myself, I finally just measured my pumpkin and drew a monstrance a size that I knew would actually fit.

No big deal. I need to learn to accept disappointments and move on. I used myself as an example to teach the kids that lesson. Take the good from the bad, right? Everything for a reason.

Little Miss Chatterbox wanted to paint her pumpkin because she didn't want hers to get all shriveled up and ugly. She made sure Mike knew NOT to cut HER pumpkin. Yes, she is a lover of beauty.

Since she was painting her pumpkin, her brothers naturally wanted to follow her lead and asked if they could paint their pumpkins too. So they did.

(Yes, Jan. I think you're right about the growth spurt. Look at this big kid! I get the boys mixed up all the time now)

My plan was to carve their designs for them after the pumpkins dried. Mr. Funny wanted a flaming sword (symbol of St. Michael) and Mr. Tickle wanted "feed the poor". A symbol for one of the corporal works of mercy? What a great idea! Mike teaches religion to the kids every Sunday and had just taught them the corporal works of mercy. He also showed them clips of Mother Teresa helping the poor. This must have struck a chord in my sweet Mr. Tickle. I drew the designs on paper for their little pumpkins, but alas, it was not to be. You see, I had bought a pumpkin from Wal-Mart a few weeks back when the kids and I wanted to plant mums and pansies and make our house look fall. The pumpkin was only $3.88. So, when we went to the pumpkin patch and ended up spending more money than we had planned , we decided to just buy one pumpkin and get the others at Wal-Mart. Well, when I went to get the pumpkins they were sold out. I had Mr. Tickle and Little Miss Sunshine with me and I didn't feel like driving all over town looking for pumpkins. Then, I found some little ones in the produce section for pumpkin pie. I bought three of those thinking they were perfect for the kids. Turns out those suckers and really hard to cut through. In fact, I couldn't cut through them at all. So, I drew the symbols instead. Mr. Funny was a little upset, but after learning from his mother's mistakes, he got over it quickly and was happy that he at least got to paint his pumpkin and was proud of his work.

Mike carved out the Sacred Heart.

It's his favorite thing to draw so I wasn't surprised that he chose it for his pumpkin. He did a great job too! And while he was carving it out, Little Miss Chatterbox walked up behind him to watch. He lifted the pumpkin up to get a look from a different angle when Little Miss Chatterbox said, "Dad, there's a spider on the bottom of your pumpkin!" Without a moment of hesitation, Mike stabbed it with his knife. "Geez. Jodi, check out the size of this thing." I could tell right away that it was a black widow because Little Miss Chatterbox had spotted one in the summer time. I told Mike it was a black widow but he said it didn't have a red hour glass on it's back. I told him that's because it would be on the stomach. He turned it to look and sure enough, there was the red hour glass.

Thank God LMC spotted it! I can't image having a black widow loose in my house. I thought about how blessed we were that Mike happened to pick out that pumpkin to carve and that he happened to lift up the pumpkin right when LMC was there to spot it. Then I thought back to my ugly moment of pouting like a little spoiled child because I had told mike that I wished I had his pumpkin because it was bigger than mine. He had already started so we couldn't trade. Did I wonder what would have happened if I had gotten that pumpkin? Yes, of course I did. I know I would have noticed that it was a black widow right away and I would have gotten scared that it was so close to me and I would probably have screamed and dropped my pumpkin and the spider would probably have gotten away. Or jumped onto me. Or worse. I had Little Miss Sunshine in my lap. It could have jumped on her. I didn't want to think about that anymore. Then I wondered if anyone would have even noticed it all if I had been the one to have that pumpkin. Like I said, everything for a reason.

(Little Miss Sunshine was very interested in the pumpkin)

Despite all our mishaps, we had a good time and successfully completed our pumpkins.

(And enjoyed some seasonal pumpkin ale by Samuel Adams. It's very good. Go try some while you can if you haven't already.)

This will be a night that the Shaffer family will not soon forget.

The Play Date Cafe Challenge

My sister has just shared a really neat crafting blog which has challenges each week for anyone who's interested and each week there is a different color scheme. This weeks color picks are black and white with a touch of burgundy. Burgundy made me think of all the beautiful trees outside. I needed to make a card this week anyway and now I had inspiration!

Here's my card:

After looking at some of the entries, I see I'm way out of my league. But it's worth a shot, right?

Pumpkin Patch (Part Two)

You can read Part One here.

After the slides came the animals!

They had all kinds of facts about different animals written on the sides of the barns and the chicken coop. Little Miss Chatterbox particularly enjoyed reading them.

After that, it was time for lunch.

There was an all female band of middle aged woman rockin' out by the picnic tables. But we couldn't stay long because they weren't playing songs that were family friendly. We actually thought it was strange to have this kind of band playing at a place that's obviously geared towards children. But idunno... maybe other families don't mind if they're kids listen about sexy wet lips. And yes, my children pay attention because after they sang those words LMC looked at me with a questioning look on her face. But other than that, they were really good. I was impressed, at least.

Then we went to see the Pumpkin Princess in her pretty orange and green dress. There was a medieval theme that weekend so the kids got to make a wand craft and color shields.

They have a really nice pond where you can go fishing if you bring your own pole. The ducks in the pond came over to us as fast as they could, looking for hand outs. Sorry, ducks! We didn't know to bring bread for you. It was a nice place to take some pictures. Too bad the kids were pretty sick of pictures by that time. Or should I say, the boys were sick of pictures by that time.

And the sun was getting in every one's eyes.

Okay kids, time to move on! We need to catch a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch.

Here we go!

A real pumpkin patch! Cool!

Oops, hair in the face. Let's try again.

After paying to get in and buying lunch, only one pumpkin was in our budget. So, we decided to pick out a family pumpkin rather than individual pumpkins.

Mr. Tickle was so cute. As soon as we got off the hay ride, he went to the first pumpkin he saw and tried to pick it up. But it was too heavy. He continued on in this manner the whole time, going from one pumpkin to the other. But they were all too heavy for him to pick up.

Finally, as we were loading back onto the hay ride he found one small enough to pick out and shouted, "I did it! I found my pumpkin!" I was too busy cheering for him to get a picture of his big smile. He was very proud of himself. I was afraid he'd want to take it but instead he put it back down and said, "Bye, pumpkin! See you next year!"

And then guess what? I forgot to get a picture of the pumpkin we picked out. But it was the one Mike carved a Sacred Heart in to.

And that, my friends, was our adventure at Great Country Farms.

As you can see, the kids had a Great time at Great Country.