Our Pumpkin Tradition

Between the flurry of adjusting to new work schedules and new school and the ridiculous amount of homework that comes with older children, we are still trying to keep our family fall traditions.

It's actually felt a little hard to do that this year.  Fall is making me extremely homesick for Iowa.  I miss the apple orchard and fall walks about the lake. I miss the small town pumpkin patch.

This year, we made our way to a huge corn maze.  The boys enjoyed the very large maze, which was actually a little challenging.

There where quite a few other activities- slides, trains, and such, which were don't with varying almounts of enjoyment (Duck did not like the slide or the corn pit). 

However, as the afternoon progressed, the area got very crowded and we all became overwhelmed by the number of people. We decided to call it a day much earlier than anticipated.

We did still get pumpkins from a local farm. 

This weekend, we sat down to carve them.

Our traditional, slightly over the top pumpkin carving is even more fun now that the older boys can pick out their own patterns and clean and carve their own pumpkins (although they both are surprisingly squeamish about pumpkin guts.)

Monkey choose a simple Minecraft Creeper face, because he wanted to make sure he picked something he could do himself.

Bug carved Grumpy Cat.

Hubster carved Wall-E for Duck (and this one is probably my favorite.)

After waffling between several designs like I do every year, I picked a Weeping Angel to match my costume this year (we are doing a themed family dress up this year, and I'm obnoxiously excited about it.)

Hubster settled on Gollum (after I didn't give a enthusiastic response to his Dumb and Dumber stencil.) Gollum does seem to have a little more creepy Halloween feel anyways.

Now, the pumpkins are settled on the front porch, with all of us just hoping that they make it to Halloween.