4th Annual Pumpkin Carve

Whew!!! What a year for a Pumpkin Carve, the weather was perfect, the food was plentiful and everyone from our Sunday School came out (and I do mean everyone). As Jeff and I planned for our yearly event, the RSVPs kept rolling in, 40 then 50 then 60 then...who knows. As the anticipation grew, so did the guest list and the final tally did not disappoint, 80 people including our crew. Now some may cringe at 8o people in their house, but take heart only 30 of those were adults, wait so 50 kids, is that better or worse? Well we thought it was pretty great. The kids enjoyed pumpkin games and bobbing for apples before we dug into the carving, quite literally. After the kids had carved their pumpkins and only the serious carvers were left, Jeff started "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" on a projector outside. While serving 50 children popcorn outside (and not having to vacuum it up this year) was a blessing, the sound goofing up was not. But then there is always something to improve next year, and we look forward to the challenge!

The calm before the chaos.

The chaos!

Ahh, sweet victory!

The mommies and the littlest pumpkins.

Watching the movie.

A job well done!

Pumpkin Picking Perfection

A couple weekends ago I took the little boys to a local pumpkin patch one morning with our MOPS group. They loved everything about it from feeding the animals in the barn to riding on the hayride and posing on the tractors, and of course most of all, picking out their very own pumpkin!

Pumpkins as far as the eye can see!The boys got lots of goat and sheep "kisses".Playing in the maze!The next day, we took our whole family and our good friends the Walfords and we drove over to a REAL pumpkin patch. These pumpkins were actually on the vine! I don't think my children had ever even seen that before:) There was lots to do there as well, but the highlights were the hayride to the pumpkin fields and the giant silo slide. After an amazing afternoon pumpkin picking and playing we all came back to our house for a pizza party. A majority of the kids are accounted for in this picture:)

Mommy with the youngest and Daddy with the oldest.

Now that is what I call a Pack Mule!

The Walfords looking picture perfect.

Super fun silo slide made from an actual silo!

Finally time to go pick pumpkins!

Found mine!

Pumpkins everywhere.

Our trip back on the tractor ride, I think our families just about took up the whole thing!

Ahhhh, a successful trip all around:)

It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

Part 2 of our crazy, busy weekend began early Sunday morning when we jumped in the car and drove out to Bryson City, NC. For those of you who are not familiar, Bryson City is about an hour outside of Asheville in the Smokey Mountains. For us that was a 3 1/2 hour trip. Not bad except that I forgot the DVD player and the CD player is broken. So the kids had to play old-school with each other.

Maybe I should back up a bit and start from the beginning. A few months ago Jeff was online and found this train trip on the Great Smokey Mountain Railroad called It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown in Bryson City. The trip consisted of a 45 minute train ride over to the Great Pumpkin Patch where you could meet Charlie Brown, Lucy and Snoopy. Since this is one of our family's favorite movies we were quick to make the reservations.

OK, back to the trip. After a quick stop for lunch we made our destination with a little time to spare and had plenty of time to change into our costumes. The train was an amazing renovation of cars from the 1920's. Since it was such a beautiful day, we chose to sit in the open air train car and watch the breathtaking scenery click, clack by while listening to "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" being read to us over the loudspeaker.

Once at the pumpkin patch the kids had their choice of fun things to do, bob for apples, hayride, bounce house, trick-or-treat, meeting with characters, picking out a pumpkin, and so much more. We topped it all off with apple cider and cookies before boarding the train to come back.

The trip home was much less exciting. Most of the kids were asleep before we hit the freeway! After a idyllic mountain railroad Sunday, Monday was downright boring...thank goodness. The kids had the day off from school and Jeff took the day off from work. We spent the entire day, being lazy, watching movies and then ordered a pizza for dinner. Nothing like a nice vacation day to get you recharged from vacation.

Even the trains were decked out for the season.

I can hardly tell which is the real Charlie Brown :)

The kids really loved roasting marshmallows, but if you look close, they were all burnt to a crisp! Bella's favorite was the bouncy slide. Calla and Noah making hammered leather bracelets. Trick-or-treating was awesome, they had a tent set up that was pitch black inside and had little house fronts for the kids to knock on!Cool pumpkin tattoo.

On the hayride through Snoopy's backyard. It even included Snoopy's plane the Red Barron. Micah found his pumpkin!More character fun.Alas, we say goodbye and load back on the train. The kids loved the open-air train car we sat in, it allowed for virtually unobstructed views of the beautiful scenery.

Nehemiah left as Charlie Brown... But he came home as Pigpen!