Pumpkins: Patch 2.1, Patch 2.2 and things to eat

I feel like in the last week or so we have done a lot of pumpkin things. Mostly I just wanted to get everything done by Halloween. Thankfully, we have. Here it is.

The kids and I painted our 5 pumpkins (2 from the Patch in Santaquin and 3 from my friend in Spanish Fork who grew her own this year.

I was going for "scary." oh well. At least it glows in the dark. That's pretty cool.

 "Autumn" this is my artsy pumpkin

We made chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, which we do every year because they are fabulous.

But I didn't take a photo of the beautiful muffins, just of the ugly looking batter. Oh well. You can always look up last year's post if you really want to see these muffins in all their pumpkin glory.

 Ok. Pumpkin Patch 2.1

We went to Jaker's which is near Walmart. What I love about this place is that everything is free except the pumpkins. They had farm animals... this is Abigail in front of the really big pig (did I mention she is in love with pigs?) My friend jokingly asked Abigail if she wanted to ride it and Abigail was disappointed when I told her she couldn't.

 They also have a big corn kernel pit, which was a blast with the kiddos and adults.

 except maybe not so much this kiddo. Sorry Lukas.

 They had a maze just for little kids, which I think is a fabulous idea. Joshua figured out quickly had to take control of the situation.

 At home we worked on some Halloween pumpkin art.

And I got suckered - by my own kids - into buying more pumpkins. We got a really really little one for Abigail, a medium one for Joshua, and this monster, so we could carve him. So we carved him.

 This was our inspiration.

 This was our reality.

 And this is what he looks like at night. His name, by the way, is Janckie - not rhyming with Hanky, but like Jacky with an n.

 We roasted his seeds. This year I was successful. These were so delicious. I read some online recipes and decided to add cinnamon and sugar to the seeds after they had been roasted in butter and salt. Yum.

 I couldn't decide which photo I liked (because my new camera is so awesome, you can actually see the granules of sugar!!!) so I put in both.

 Pumpkin Patch 2.2  

We went to the pumpkin patch again!  Yeah! We really like this place. When I told Abigail we were going the first thing she said was, "Darf ich das Schwein reiten?" (may I ride the pig?) And this time I was using the new camera so I tried to take some better photos. These are kind of dark. I think I just need to figure out my settings a little better.

 A note on Abigail's necklaces: She designed her necklace(s) herself, consisting of two headbands, one attached to a ballerina doll that Lukas swiped from Grammy's house, the other with a "butterfly" or "flower" depending on what she's feeling like at the moment, and a silver beaded necklace because it's just like my pearl necklace that I wore on Sunday. She asked if she could wear them to the pumpkin patch I said, hey, why not.

 Abigail jumping from a bale of hay.

 Joshua enjoying the corn.

 I really should have more than one photo of our grand finale, but it just seemed like too much work. (I used the "gourmet" setting on my camera which is specifically for taking photographs of food.) Anyway, this is pumpkin soup and pumpkin corn bread. The corn bread didn't taste like pumpkin, really, but that may be because my cornmeal was kind of old - so the bread mostly just tasted like old corn meal. That didn't stop Joshua from eating 4 pieces. And the pumpkin soup, I would say, gets a 7.5 out of 10. It was very good. I did have two bowls. But I wouldn't eat it every day and I might not make it again for a couple of months.

 Lukas had pumpkin for dinner too. I made that and I am proud of myself.

 He thought it was pretty tasty.

 These are the books from which I got the recipes. The kids and I made the soup together; Joshua was the squirrel, I was the cat, and Abigail was the duck who makes all the trouble. It's kind of a cute book, but the illustrations were, I think, better than the actual text, or even story.

Anyway. That's all. Next week, after Halloween, we'll have to start on something new. I better go look up what it will be.