Pumpkins, Shmumpkins and Voting!

Tiny with his baby pumpkin.

On Saturday we went to the pumpkin patch nearby our house. Though it is cooler than full-blast summer weather here in Houston, it's still hot when you are standing in the sun and your forehead feels like a hot plate. The Hubs claimed he could fry an egg on his "balding" spot. It's nowhere near the fall I remember growing up in Kansas City. But I remained optimistic about capturing precious moments of Tiny's first pumpkin picking and Bubba and Boo's enthusiastic chirping over which pumpkins to get.

Well...let's just say, it was nowhere near the romantic picture I had painted in my mind.

Weighed down like a pack-horse of all things baby/toddler and memory capturing devices, I waddled up to the front of the church with my brood and Hubs, where the pumpkin patch was set up. As we get closer, we see a young girl on her knees retching into the soft, well-maintained grass below her. Her mother, in her smart, designer clothes, looked concerned and confused as just what to do. The Hubs and I looked at one another, not as in "aww, poor kid" but more as in "great, now our kids are going to get a virus." Horrible isn't it? When you become a parent, this is what you think. So my visions of frolicking through rows of pumpkins was now slimed with the vomit of a sick child.

I was murmuring something about how we were going to wash there hands with rubbing alcohol before we leave and then we see the pumpkins. Even now, at thirty-three years of age, I still get excited by large quantities of pumpkins. Pallets and pallets of large, happy orange orbs. I immediately get out the camera and start clicking away.

Surrounding the patch, faux-patch really, were tents of different attractions- more like distractions. I wanted my kids to focus on the pumpkins so I could capture all I wanted to capture, because it was, afterall, all about me.

One of the many distractions, foiling my plans for portait quality pictures.

To the left, a sweet grey-haired woman was trying to lure my children into her tent with Bible stories. To the right was a sno-cone stand and a huge swingset diverting their attention. Then there was an even bigger tent with music and then...the bounce house. Oh God. I hate bounce houses. Why? Because my two oldest will beg and beg to go in. You take off their sock and shoes (any parent of a toddler knows how ANNOYING putting socks an shoes on is), they get in there for two seconds, get bumped into by a child who has no business being in there with their 5 foot-tall body and come back out bawling. We steered clear of the bounce house and distracted them with baby pumpkins and face painting.

Yup, that's about as good as it gets.

No one wanted their picture taken. The distractions were far to...distracting. Everyone refused to look directly at the camera, or if they did, their face was facing me but their eyes were on the sno-cone machine. I got a couple of Tiny with his pumpkin, but it was short-lived as the pumpkin pallets, made great bumper pads for 15 month-old children who were still wobbly in their walking abilities.

The best part, and I think the kids would agree, was the face-painting. Amazing how having a cool, wet paintbrush dance across your cheek can calm hyper 3 year-old children. They sat like zombies as the super sweet teenage girls completed their requests for a football for Bubba and a butterfly for Boo.

So my lovely friends, it's time to cast your vote! If you enjoyed my Reuben Saga-ish entry, please click on the link below. You have sent me half-way through this competition, why not send me through to the next round? I keep telling you how much I enjoy this, because it's true. I am learning so much, stepping outside my comfort zone and creating things I've never dreamed. My writing is getting better as are my photos, because of this contest. So THANK YOU!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!!!

Love ya, Foodies!