A pumpkin for my punkin'
It doesn’t quite feel like October in the McKinley household […]
It doesn’t quite feel like October in the McKinley household until we’ve been to the
pumpkin patch.
Although we normally hike to the farthest edges of the patch to find the untouched vines and the grandest gourds, this year we took a different approach. The weather was chilly and windy, and Bea is still too small to ride down the bumpy road in the wagon, so we restricted our search to a very small area. With Bea in her most festive fall attire and my camera in-h
and, Andy and I set out to peruse the area around the parking lot—hunting for photo-ops as fervently as we were for pumpkins.
I don’t know who had more fun, Bea or us. Probably us. She didn’t seem to pay too much attention the chickens or the donkey in the petting zoo or the tractor chugging up and down the road, but that didn’t stop us from trying to take her picture with every unintentional prop we could find. I would’ve thought we looked a little crazy if there weren’t a dozen other parents with their giant cameras all doing the same thing. (I’m not sure if it’s the festive colors or the juxtaposition of round baby cheeks and plump jack-o-lanterns, but I think pretty much everyone can agree there’s something irresistible about a picture of a baby wedged into a pile pumpkins and hay bales.)
We paused our photo shoot long enough to find a few pumpkins for our porch, and Andy
helped Bea pick a pint-sized squash to call her own. I know she’ll have a lot more fun next year when she can actually interact with her surroundings, but I’m chalking up our outing to a success. We didn’t think we could look forward to our yearly pumpkin patch date any more than we used to, but Bea has changed our minds. Seeing her in a cozy little hat (which, I have to proudly point out, was knit by Andy!) attempting to cram a fistful of hay into her sweet, drooly mouth was definitely more thrilling than anything we could’ve come up with on our own.
Now that our pumpkins are in place, we’re officially ready to dive into autumn—pies, leaves, boots, and fluffy baby buntings. We have a month or less to cram in as much outdoor fun as we can before the weather gets crazy cold. Luckily our little punkin’ is a good sport, so we’re going to get out and enjoy fall to its fullest.
Happy fall, y’all!
