Pumpkin Festival 2008

The Girls & Their Pumpkins

Today we had so much fun going to the Pumpkin Festival at Hunsader Farms. We've been wanting to go for years but had never gotten around to it, so this year we finally went. We hoped to be able to go and pick our pumpkins out in an actual pumpkin patch but that did not happen. We got the next best thing, picking out our clean pumpkins under a huge tent at the festival. Imogen wasted no time and was so very happy to find the cutest little pumpkin (one so little that it might be more "fun" carving it than usual), Hadley with her perfect medium size pumpkin, and Tatumn with the larger of the three. They picked them out themselves and it took all of two minutes. They didn't even collaborate on the staggered size thing. Too funny. Imogen looks very serious in this picture but she really had a good time being able to choose herself. After picking out pumpkins, we went and saw all the farm animals from pigs, to goats, bunnies, chickens, ponies, llamas, and turkeys and others I'm forgetting to mention. Then, Imogen and Hadley rode the ponies (the first time doing this) and I can say that Imogen got more enjoyment out of this than Hadley. Hadley was a bit preoccupied about falling off. Tatumn walked beside her and kept her on, so no real worries there. From the ponies, we went to the barn where Hadley played the washboard, Tatumn played the dancing wooden dolls on wooden boards, and Imogen shook a maracan egg. I helped with playing the spoons as an older married couple played the fiddle and sang Old MacDonald. Of course, there were many other children helping out with other instruments as well. What a fun group! Next were elephant ears (we all split one) and fried pickles (we split one of these as well). After enjoying a sinfully good snack, we headed to the corn maze where we let the kids call the shots and pretended to be lost the entire time. We then caught a bit of the local circus and their acts and then headed for home in order to make a late lunch/early dinner and finish the evening off with Tate's fourth soccer game this weekend (she had a tournament). Whew! We decided we have to make Hunsader Farms a tradition for as long as we're in Florida. It's a great fall festival that takes you a bit away from palm trees and saltwater air and almost makes you feel like you're in someplace other than Florida, midwest-like.... It almost felt like home.

Mom & Dad + Pumpkin Picks

Barack

On Saturday I was notified by email that Barack would be making an appearance in Tampa today so I decided to go. I figured I couldn't miss the opportunity to see him and I let Tatumn come with me. We had fun. It was nice to be around so many Obama supporters. As always, he was great to hear and see. It was inspiring and memorable.

Hadley Writes Her Name

Sometime shortly after school started, Hadley was able to write her name properly! It actually brought me to tears. It strange how the littlest things will do that to me, but this was very exciting for us because she hasn't been the most thrilled about her long days in school and writing her name correctly was not her priority. She previously wrote her name in all capitals. She seems to get rewards from the "treasure box" nearly everyday for good behavior, this week she brought home some small trinkets and a purse, and she's better about tolerating her day at school, but it is not her first love. She hates having to sit in her seat all day, as she tells me frequently. On the learning front, she's also reading short words like cat and everything that rhymes with it and sit and the words that rhyme with it, you get the picture. So yeah, just wanted to share before it got too late. Can't really sing the praises of name-writing once she's ten. This photo is truly her first successful completion of writing it. I ran to get the camera immediately once I saw it on paper.

Tatumn & Lia

I had forgotten to post the pictures from the night of Tatumn's chorus concert a couple of weeks ago. The pictures that I took inside did not turn out so I thought I would share a couple from afterwards of her and her friend, Lia. Lia and Tatumn have been friends for a couple of years and she lived in the old neighborhood near us. Anyway, I just wanted to share! Hope everyone is well.

Grandparents & Parents

And last, but not least, some pictures of the grandparents/parents. Since Imogen INSISTED on having a picture with EVERYONE at Tatumn's party, I have scads of pictures with these photo ops. I NEVER post pictures of anyone outside of our immediate family so I figured I'd take advantage of Immy's antics this time. She's a funny one, I'll tell you.......

More Party Pictures

Take a picture of me, Mom!

Dork

Dana, Hads, & Auntie

Chocolate cake, anyone?

Tatumn, Her Dance, Her Costume?

Tatumn had her dance tonight, which I mentioned in the previous post. She had decided sometime last week that she want to semi-dress-up for it, being that it's the dance they'll have for the month of October. I was a bit uncertain about this since it's awhile til Halloween but she assured me that there would be others dressing up. She also said she could run to the restroom and take off the mouse nose in the event that she was the only one. Of course, this is not her actual costume for Oct. 31st. In case no one noticed, she is Mickey Mouse. I thought it was pretty funny and cute, especially since she came up with the idea on her own, so I had to get some photos as she was going out the door.