Fetching Pumpkins

After we get all decorations up, it's time to carve pumpkins!
Last year, our local popcorn man invited us over to Brunswick for a small fall festival. We liked it so much, we went again to the same festival this year...and it was a great spot to pick out our pumpkins.  Since it was over there way, we invited Travis and Kelly to join us.  It was a warm October afternoon, so no coats needed . . .but chalked hair was asked for.  What a hoot.  (And, as a side note, Jude calls Kelly "Miss Kelly" like he would any of his school teachers.  It is very cute.)

The festival is a mash of local vendors selling salsas, jams, tupperware, artwork, vintage garage sale, signs, teas, produce, flowers... I was shopping for Christmas ideas and Brian was scoping out possible future competition if he ever decides to can and sell.

Then, there are the odd turkeys, turtles, fluffy rabbits, and alpacas to pet.  The turkeys were a hoot because they would "talk" back at you when you gobbled at them. The bunnies really did seem like little mops with tiny legs and ears, but SUPER soft.  The alpacas were very friendly, especially with my kids holding cookies :-)  But they did get the chance to feed them "real" alpaca food from their hands.

Yes, there was face painting, not done by me.

Now that I know a bit about face painting, and have some experience with painting kids... I just feel so bad when I see others have a go at it...and try so hard.

These two were good, but slow, the bane of attempting full face coverages.  I'm a cheek art type...fast, simple, few highlights and glitter = awesome enough for littles.
 Lately, I've been toying with the idea of painting around town at these festivals for tips.  Maybe next year.  They boys ended up as a tiger and a spider.

And there were pumpkins!   They put out a patch of pumpkins, all $5 and under and we let the boys pick one out.  Tamlin insisted on picking one for me, since he had a tiny one he got on his field trip the previous week to the orchard.  Jude just wanted a really big one.  And did you see that Jude's shirt is covered with spiders?  $1.00 special from the Mom sale and it's Jude's new FAVORITE shirt.  Yeah Spiders!

Afterwards, I could only convince the tykes to wait one day before carving up the orange fruit.