We went on a little outing to the local farm and pumpkin patch a couple weeks ago to pick out our Halloween pumpkins. This has become a tradition as this is the third year we have gone there. Every year they have this grow chart sign and we have taken a picture by it every year. It will be fun to put all the “How tall this Fall” pictures together in a few years to see how Micah & Caleb have grown.
It was warmer than we expected that day so we went to the open pumpkin patch first. The boys each picked out a small pumpkin for their own. They both chose ones with no stem this year, although they liked noticing the different kinds of stems, especially the twisted ones. Then we went to pick a big pumpkin for our Jack-o-lantern. After loading our pumpkins in our wagon, we went over to see the farm animals. They have pigs, horses, ducks, cows, alpacas, sheep, donkeys, rabbits, goats, a peacock, and other birds. We fed some of them with food pellets we bought there. We brought our own lunch so we had a picnic there too. Then the boys played in the playground area for a while before we headed home for nap time.
The day before Halloween we carved our pumpkin. Micah & Caleb didn’t want to help clean out the gooey stringy stuff inside. They just watched mom do it. We toasted the pumpkin seeds to have as a snack when we were done carving. We actually didn’t carve a face in our Jack-o-lantern. We had this kit with colored pegs, a little wooden hammer, and a battery-operated light. It kinda makes the pumpkin into something like a “Light-Bright” toy. We used the pattern to make a spider and marked the spots where the pegs should go. Then we hammered the pegs in, following the pattern. When we were done, we had a colorful spider on our Jack-o-lantern. The boys loved putting the light in it and taking it to a dark room to look at it glow. They love stuff that glows or lights up in the dark these days.
For Halloween our church has a Harvest Fest carnival and they usually have a theme too. This year the theme was sports, so Caleb wanted to be a Chargers football player and Micah chose to be a Padres baseball player. They were easy costumes because we already had a Chargers jersey (which Caleb would probably wear every day if I let him) and Micah just wore his T-ball uniform from this spring. In the morning we went to a little Halloween party at a friends house. Everyone brought yummy treats and there were fun games & activities for the kids like coloring mini pumpkins with markers, decorating Halloween cookies, a Jack-o-lantern beanbag toss, pumpkin bowling (using a little pumpkin as the ball), and funny fishing. The kids loved the fishing game best because they got candy. They even had pony rides. Micah & Caleb didn’t want to ride the pony though.
In the evening we went to the Harvest Fest. I think the boys liked jumping in the bouncy houses the best. They spent probably an hour doing that. Then we went and got hot dogs at the food court for dinner and had a piece of candy for dessert. Then we went back to play a couple more games (bean bag toss, ring toss, and ball toss) before heading home to get ready for bed. Micah also enjoyed handing out candy to a few trick-or-treaters that came to our house after we got back home. He was great at it; greeting the kids, passing out candy, and commenting on their costumes or accessories. Very cute.
We had a fun Halloween.
