This weekend I had to work all day Saturday and then learn the news that it was a gorgeous pretty beauty day from everyone else who had the good sense to take a day off. So to make up for that, on Sunday after church, we took a drive out to southern Pennsylvania to look at fall leaves. Is this not the most idyllic image you've ever seen?


(Well, excluding the smudge on the lens in the center of the photograph from someone's finger, that is...)

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While we were up there, we stopped at a farmer's market to pick up a crook-necked pumpkin (our regular pumpkin place didn't have any this year and we really love this particular type of pumpkin). And while we were picking out pumpkins, we were chatting with a gentleman there who said he was from our area. He asked if we knew what we were going to do with the crook-necked pumpkin and we started talking about recipes that contained pumpkin.

"I just found a recipe for pumpkin pudding online somewhere. I think I'm going to try that," I said.

"Oooo that sounds good," he said, "What else do you make with it?"

"Last year, she made this really awesome pumpkin soup," the KingofHearts chimed in.

Him: "Really?"

KoH: "Yeah. It was SO GOOD. Best soup ever. You should try that with your pumpkin. You won't be sorry."

Him: "Where did you get the recipe?"

Me: "Oh, I just search online for stuff and try it out when I need a recipe for something. Just Google 'Pumpkin Soup' and you'll find a ton of them."

Him: "Well, I wouldn't know what was a good recipe to use."

KoH: "We'll send it to you! Give me your email address and we'll email it."

Him: "That would be great. Here it is."

They go through the process of finding some scrap of paper to write on, who's got a pen-ing other patrons until finally they find something to write with and he writes down his email address, which turns out to be something like thisisthelongestemailaddressintheworld@hotmail.com, and hands it to me. I'm a bit dumbfounded by this whole exchange and all I can do is take the card from him and stare blankly.

Him: "You won't forget now, will you?"

KoH: "No. We'll remember."

Him: "OK. Because I really want that recipe. Don't forget me."

KoH: "No problem. We'll send it. Promise."

They wave to each other and we all walk away and get in the car. He drives off in his car.

Me: "You know I don't have a pumpkin soup recipe, right?"

KoH: "What?!?"

Me: "There's no pumpkin soup recipe in the recipe box. Look, I don't really even remember making pumpkin soup, but if I did and somehow forgot about it entirely, I'm pretty positive that recipe is not in the recipe box at home anyway."

KoH: "Oh. Well, just send him something off the internet, I guess."

Which is not what I did, not even a little bit. I'd feel incredibly guilty about that. Like I copied the Nestle Toll-house Cookie recipe off the back of the chocolate chip bag and then tried to pass it off as a secret family recipe handed down for generations.

Instead, I found a recipe in my recipe box that was similar and every time the words "butternut squash" appeared in it, I replaced it with "pumpkin."

Hope he likes his Curried Butternut Squash Pumpkin Soup. I also hope that when he makes it and realizes it tastes awful, he'll think it was his fault for not being a good cook.

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On Monday night I took a little time out from my little stress-filled universe to carve pumpkins with the girls. The only problem was that we haven't even gotten any of the Halloween decorations out from the attic yet this year. And the box where the Halloween decoration are? Is also where all the fancy-schmancy pumpkin carving tools and design templates are. We had to carve pumpkins the old-fashioned way:

with power tools.



Say what you will, but it makes the initial opening of the fruit so much faster.

Also: you'll notice The Dormouse rambling on about something through the entire clip. Do not bother to try and figure out what she is saying, I can't. She is not talking to you. She is not talking to us. She is not even talking to herself. This is just the default position of her mouth.

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You'll be pleased to know, however, that after the initial pumpkin opening, we kicked it old school as pumpkin carving was meant to be done, with dangerous knives and nearly cutting through of fingers. Wouldn't want my kids to be spoiled by having all ten digits or anything, they might get cocky.

The KingofHearts came up with a very cool one-eyed-jack-o-lantern idea.


The Dormouse went for a conceptual jack-o-lantern. Meet the "Half Angel/Half Devil Vampire Bat Pumpkin:"

Yeah, I'm at a loss to explain this one as well. Who knows what craziness dwells in the minds of seven-year-olds? Only The Shadow knows.

The Caterpillar isn't really big enough to participate fully yet, but wanted to SO BADLY. So I ended up just giving her a crayon and telling her to draw a face. Then I cut around her lines with a knife. I think hers turned out to quite possibly be the best jack-o-lantern EVER.

Here's that result:


It reminds me of those websites where kids draw a picture and send it in so they can make a stuffed animal that looks exactly like the picture.

Me? I did not carve a pumpkin, though I have one waiting for me outside. I have plans for it. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to actually see those plans come to fruition sometime before Halloween.

Until then, enjoy our pumpkins in the wild: