I’ll start off our Halloween extravaganza documentation with our little outing to the pumpkin patch ~

First of all, when did taking your picture with a big pile of pumpkins become as important a tradition as your photo with Santa? My Mom always took us to the local farm shop to see the giant mounds of pumpkins they were selling, but we didn’t dress in orange and do a mini photo shoot on top of them. I also think we were too poor to buy any. So we just looked at them. Said “Wow! Look at all those pumpkins!!” Bought a bag of pecans in preparation for Thanksgiving…

And so it kind of makes me chuckle that I coordinate my children’s outfits and fix their hair every year to go join the hundreds of other parents propping their babies up on pumpkins for this annual Fall craze. The main problem nowadays (did you hear that?! I just said “nowadays”…awesome) has nothing to do with buying pumpkins…or pecans, for that matter…but trying to stay out of each other’s photographs! It is a fine art, I assure you.

My kids and my Mom and I met up with my sister-in-law and a friend at the patch. Between the lot of us, there were 8 children to keep up with; thus my Mom made it her job to count them every 30 seconds or so. Mom, my friend Megan, and myself kind of tag-teamed on keeping the kids happy while Amy (remember? My amazing photographer/sister-in-law?) snapped away, taking outstanding photos for the entire group. So thankful for her.

We packed our lunches and really had an outstanding outing. I came home with a very happy heart, a small box of small pumpkins, and a strong desire to go back to the pumpkin patch and steal the baby lamb that let us feed it corn. I will have a farmyard around here before too long…watch me.

"Grandmother" walks her ducklings to the pumpkin patch

These poor pumpkins didn't know what hit them. Kids nowadays...

Sometimes I force Amy to hand over the camera so I can take HER picture. She's beautiful, isn't she?

The eldest of our bunch, my niece Abigail Grace

My niece Anna Ruth

my smallest niece, Kate Belle

my sweet friend, Megan, and her precious children

Megan's daughter Gabbie

and her baby boy, Jackson

this picture shows how happy I am nowadays. I'm not pregnant anymore!!!

Gid the Kid spent a lot of his time loading and unloading pumpkins into a wheelbarrow

Miss Sunday, keeping all the pumpkins in line

and bringing up the rear is my sweet Betsie Fair, 1 of 156 babies propped up on a pumpkin that day

and one more, just cause she's cute

evidence of a fun and lazy day

this was for reals, we just prolonged it. "Tell Gid another secret, Anna!"

Life is good. Three cheers for pumpkin patch fun!

Fun…inexpensive…fresh air…animals…great photo backdrops…picnics…you really can’t beat a trip to the pumpkin patch. Just STAY OUT of other people’s pictures.

Oh, and we also learned a good trick. Why buy a bag of food to feed the animals when you can pick up stray corn kernels that all the dummies dropped on the ground? It was quite comical to see 7 of our little ones bent over in concentration, filling their dirty little hands up with corn. They have no idea how cheap resourceful their mommies are...