and then, the night before halloween, we carved ’em. in past years, the bulk of the pumpkin cutting, cleaning, and carving fell to us parents as our kids would gag on the smell of pumpkin guts, refuse to stick their hands in the slimy goop, and eventually get bored and run off to play.  they’d only come back once all was done, cleaned up, and smiley jack-o-lanterns were ready for them to claim as their own. well, it appears to be a new day, folks. they were so eager to get started that they jumped in before i was ready for em. and they did most of it by themselves…

it was beginning to look like we weren’t going to make it to the pumpkin farm this year and that was totally bumming me out.  because there’s not that much to indicate fall as arrived around here- no fall leaves, no chilly weather (it’s still in the near 90s!), no fall clothes to bust out.  so the only thing we have to mark the change of seasons is to drive an hour to a real working farm in order to get our fix of fallishness. except life has been very, very busy for us lately.  and adding this one extra trip made both phil and i very, very tired. but…