Pumpkin Pickin'

One of our favorite parts of fall is the fun and excitement of Halloween. The choosing of costumes and the picking of pumpkins. For the last several years, we've enjoyed making a trip to a local farm for our pumpkins. The kids have had so much fun at Harvest Farm in past years, that I think we all look forward to our day there each October. This year, Doug and I had to make the tough decision to cut it out of the October budget, in lieu of the fact that we had several other out-of-town trips and expenses to cover instead.

That didn't stop the boys from being excited about selecting pumpkins this year. Every time Sean's seen them at the grocery store, he's been asking for us to get some. He got a pair of flannel jammie pants with pumpkins on them and has insisted on wearing them every night. His last four books from the library have had pumpkins in them. He picks pages with pumpkins to color first in his coloring books. He has me drawing pumpkins on his MagnaDoodle daily. He has a fine eye for spotting pumpkins on other people's porches.

So, yeah, the boy wanted pumpkins. Doug and I took the kids to do something I never thought we'd do....

we went to Wal-Mart for the sole purpose of selecting pumpkins. Not quite the photo op I had in mind, but we thought we'd take a couple anyway. There was a huge stack of hay bales, which of course my kids climbed up.




Only to be immediately told by WM staff to get down for fear of injury...

Sigh, well, they might not have had all the fun they are used to at Harvest Farm, but they did pick out 4 big pumpkins to bring home and it saved us a good $50. I'm hoping to hold off carving them till Sunday afternoon, so they don't look rotten by Halloween.