Oh my gourd, what pumpkin should I pick?

 We've had a busy month so far, but somehow we had not yet made it to a pumpkin patch. Today we had to change that. 

Middle, Little, Papa R, and I hit the road to visit one of our favorite farms, Garver Family Farm. The weather was a perfect fall afternoon and the farm wasn't too busy. We grabbed a wagon and checked out the pre-picked pumpkins around the store. 

These pumpkins were great, but we came for adventure and the patch awaited! On the way to the field, we stopped to admire the resident pumpkin truck. Papa R has quite the affection for this truck. We have welcome mats for every season with the truck and various decor items for each holiday.

This was Middle's first time visiting a pumpkin patch, so his first few yards in were a little tricky navigating the vines. He quickly got the hang of it though and was speeding around checking out the selection.

We took our time, searching high and low, for the perfect pumpkins. Middle was excited to see pumpkins of varying sizes in green, white, and orange. Finally, our task compete, we loaded our finds into the wagon and headed to the store for the weigh in.

Our largest pumpkin came in at a nice 26.5lbs while the smaller was 21lb. Outside the store, Middle couldn't resist another photo op to mark the occasion.

Middle let Papa R do the heavy lifting into the car, but insisted on checking his haul to make sure they were secure for the ride home.

Satisfied with their security, we loaded up for home. Initially, we were planning on keeping the pumpkins on the porch until Big could join us for carving, but Middle insisted that they be moved inside. He sat guard with them, camouflaged so as not to draw too much attention.

Since Big wouldn't be joining us until next weekend and Middle really wanted to do something with a pumpkin today, I decided to let him help me carve Little's pumpkin instead. Originally, we planned to use paint to put Little's feetprints on his first official pumpkin, just as we did for Middle's, but since Middle was feeling crafty, Momma came up with an alternate idea. After I cut the top off, it was Middle's turn to scoop out all the guts!

He loved using the scoops, but I made him use his hands just a little, on principle. What's a pumpkin carving if you don't get your hands dirty? He didn't seem overly excited, but he wasn't totally grossed out, so win.

Because the design was so small (due to pumpkin size) I handled all the actual carving, but I paused occasionally to let middle scoop out the bits. When we were finished, we lit up the pumpkin so Middle could admire our work. 

With as excited as he was with this small pumpkin, Momma can't wait to see how he reacts to the much larger ones, especially when we light them up on the porch.