Pumpkins and Popcorn

We went to my family's this past weekend for my nephew's 14th birthday. We started the weekend with another successful fun swimming lesson on Saturday morning. Then we headed out on the 2 hour drive where I dodged being in an accident three times! People were driving crazy, not sure what was up with that.

My Mom, sister, niece, Christian and I went to a pumpkin patch on Saturday afternoon.  They converted a small barn in to a store with some decorative Halloween items, pumpkins, gords, indian corn, etc.  They had a couple of nice display settings outside where people were taking pictures of their kids.  There was a pony, two fainting goats and some hens in pens. They made a small hay bale maze for the kids and had a sandbox type of thing filled with corn which kids were going nuts in.  Then you could take a tractor/wagon ride around the gord and pumpkin patch, which Christian loved!

After the ride we grabbed a wagon, some clippers and headed out to the patch to find our perfect pumpkins.  Christian wanted to be in charge of pulling the wagon around, which he did great, until we put several pumpkins and gords in it and then it was too heavy for him to pull. So his backup plan was to ride in the wagon and got annoyed when he was told there wasn't room for him.  My niece walked all over the patch trying to decide which pumpkin she wanted.  We were all following her and Christian kept tripping on the vines and falling down. He would no sooner get up, take a few steps, and down he went again. He didn't get mad, just kept getting up and falling down and we got to laughing so hard at him! After we found our treasures, off we went to pay and head home.

Christian has been obsessed with popcorn lately, not sure why. He's only had it twice but apparantly loved it.  When we went into the store area to pay, he spied a popcorn machine where they were giving away free popcorn.  Of course we got some, he snatched the bag and took off, guess he thought he was going to have to share :)  He was standing watching the pony and goats when a little boy about 2 1/2 yrs old or so, came right up to Christian, stuck his hand in the bag to snag some popcorn. Christian freaked out and yelled, "no, no, MY popcorn!"  The boy took a step back when Christian was shaking his finger at him. I told Christian to be nice and while he was looking up at me, the little boy made his move again for the popcorn.  Amazed me actually and his mom was just standing there watching it happen.  Now I understand all about sharing but there are manners in there somewhere too, right???  I told Christian to give him some, he did and after turned and ran for Grandma yelling something.  Now you see, Grandma was the one that gave him the popcorn in the first place so he was going back to talk her into more.  He's a little charmer.

Christian has asked me the last several days to "open" the pumpkin.  I told him we can't or they will get icky and we'll have to throw them away.  Then he picked up the little one and beat it on the ground. I asked him what he was doing and he said "opening the pumpkin."  Not sure how long they'll last with his determination!
I am going to carve them closer to Halloween and can't wait to see his reaction when he sticks his hand inside!

~Amy