Happy, Happy Birthday (with pumpkin pickin too)

My awesome hubby had a birthday over the weekend and I wanted to give him honorable mentioned...

He spent his birthday with the family then he headed out the next day with his crazy guy friends to play some paintball.  The kids and I decided to head to my folks house for a day in the country.  Firstborn snagged a big fish with his new fishing gear...

While we were hanging out at their house I came across a pic of my parents...

Thanksgiving, 1994

As I was looking at it the thought dawned on me that my folks were almost the exact same age as Doug and I are right now!!  How can that even be possible?  It's strange because I remember that time so clearly (I would have been 20).  Odd to realize that I actually knew my parents at this age, as opposed to just having childhood memories of them, or being too young to understand or relate to them.  They make 40 look good!!

On the drive home the kids and I stopped at a local farm to pick some pumpkins.  It must have been awhile since we actually went pumpkin picking because Soccer Boy mentioned he never remembers going, and he's now 11 years old!  Failing on my mothering duties, so I had to redeem myself and here's the proof...

Toddler Boy loved riding in the wagon

Benefits of having older brothers who can
pull the wagon!

Posing with their pumpkins

Adding Toddler Boy to shot

Parting family shot

A shout out to Mary who recently did a pumpkin picking post that gave me the idea.  Her pics are much prettier, our pumpkin patch was pretty much "picked over".  I think we went too late in the season, next year we'll shoot for earlier.  In her post she mentioned how expensive this type of trip has become.  Our family lives near a few large "pick your own" type farms, and she's right, we would end up spending quite a bit for our family of 7 to all pick.  On this trip we went to a small local farm, picked six or seven small to medium size pumpkins and one really big one, three tiny gourdes for Game Boy, and two bags of kettle corn for the van ride home.  Plus the kids got to climb around on their little playground area.  All for the whopping price of $14.00!!  Love

Soccer Boy immediately got to work carving his Jack-O-Lantern when we got home...

Yum!!

And last but not least, I'm doing an add on for Grace over at Camp Patton.  She recently posted a pic of her son on a space ship amusement park ride that reminded me so much of this little blast from the past...

Soccer Boy (2) and Firstborn (4)
Coal Fest, 2004

Yes, I still have it on my computer so I didn't even have to scan the one hanging in a frame on the wall (although that one is a better shot because it's cropped and for whatever reason I can't figure out how to get my cropped pics from my computer to my blog).  Soccer Boy was a daredevil at 2 and still is now and he loved, loved, loved that ride.  Over the years he has convinced his older brother to ride many a ride that Firstborn was not too keen on but did it anyway for his brother's sake.  It's good for Firstborn to have a brother like that, it gets him out of his comfort zone a bit to try new things.  Bonus for mom, Firstborn is pretty responsible and usually keep Soccer Boy out of too much trouble!!

Have a great day!!