Carving Pumpkins

Happy Nearly-Halloween, America!

So, as you know, this weekend for us was, well, insane.  School parties, neighborhood house parties, lesson plan parties (oh, wait.)  Anyway, by Sunday evening we were all pretty exhausted and tired and not looking forward to another week of work and school.  We had already started winding the kids down for the evening, getting them - and us - into pajamas, when we suddenly realized, much to our dismay, that we had forgotten to carve the f***ing Halloween pumpkins.

Like a bunch of champs.

Trick or Treating would be tomorrow after work/school, so we were forced to do it tonight, regardless of how much - ooooh, how much - we did NOT want to do it.

This may be the fastest blitzkrieg of a pumpkin-carving session the Houghs have ever had.

Behold:

The gutting process begins

The girls are getting pretty good at handling knives - we didn't have to help them out at all this year.

Kris made a pumpkin with braces this year - she's in orthdonics, folks - so, of course, both kids wanted braces on their pumpkins as well.

Abby and her finished product

From left to right:  the party pumpkin (the one that had dip coming out of its mouth), Alayna's pumpkin, mine, Abby's, and Kris'.

The Hough Family's 2016 Halloween Pumpkins

- Brian

Punkins

Grandma's Pumpkin Patch:  this year's Beaverton

Happy October, readers.

Last year, if you'll remember, Kris and Cindy had come up with a grand ol' plan for getting all the kids their seasonal pumpkins:  a pumpkin patch in scenic Beaverton, MI.

Well, this year a repeat of this venture wasn't in the cards:  conflicting schedules made it impossible for the Whites and Houghs to coordinate a pumpkin quest in Beaverton, so Kris started looking around for pumpkin patches in the greater Midland area instead.  She came across this one place that was high-rated called "Grandma's Pumpkin Patch," just outside of town, and so today we drove out and made sure the kids could buy themselves their very own, overpriced pumpkins.

We never met this elusive Grandma, but her setup wasn't too bad.

Smurf it:

What do you think this lady is yelling at my kid?

Then there's our eight-year-old. . .

They had a lot of kid activities at this place - the usual carnival-ish sort of crafts/games, bounce houses, hay rides, etc. - so here we have Kris doing some mental math, trying to determine how much crap our kids are actually going to do and how many tickets she'll have to end up buying.

Face painting (usually a fan favorite, we steered the kids far clear of this attraction - that wasn't worth two dollars for something that would wipe off in a few hours.)

Goats belong behind fences.  You heard me, Ghana.

These are always kid magnets.  I don't get it.

(If you'll look closely, you can see Kris and offspring ascending this wooden thingy to the right, there.)

This turkey had a really shitty attitude.  Relax, bro.

See that wagon in the background?  That's for a hayride through the cornfield.  It left every 15 minutes, so I hopped in line to save our spot (I was more than happy to do so - as much fun as it is to repeatedly say, "Don't put your hand near the cow's mouth" and all.)

Spot the handsome dad, guys.

The Cannonball.  Again, with this.

While I was waiting saving our spot in line for the hayride, Kris and the girls found a monster truck. . .

If my Focus had tires like this on it, I wouldn't mind driving it in the snow so much.

Finally on the hay wagon. . .

Into the wild. . .

A random broken-down truck in the middle of the woods.  Who knows why.

Oh, you can bet your asses the Houghs checked this out. . .

I'm not going to lie:  we all thoroughly enjoyed this.  I could watch this all day long. 

Geese weren't as fun to watch as the pigs, but still better than waiting in line for a hayride.

After twenty minutes or so at the races, we swung out to let the kids pick out their pumpkins, on the other side of the farm.

Knowing that these things were going to be comically over-priced (they were), we let the girls each pick out one, small pumpkin.  We always buy our large, carve-able ones from Jack's or Meijer.

It always seems to take Alayna a little longer to pick something out than Abby.  Where Abby will pick up the first thing she spots and swear by it, Alayna will methodically take her time going over multiple selections before finally settling upon one.  She gets that from me.

Abby's pumpkin.

Alayna's pumpkin.

Ponies.  We didn't do this.

The weigh station. 

Stopping on our way out of Grandma's joint in order to have the kids pose inside this giant cornucopia for a fall-ish photo op. . .

I could fill albums with pictures like this. . .

- Brian