The Secret to Choosing the Perfect Pumpkin

What are your favorite things about fall?  Are you a summer girl (me! me!) or do the chillier autumn temps get you pumped for football and spiced cider?  I must admit that if summer has to go then fall is a wonderful consolation prize– and each year I’m determined to make the best of it.  Perhaps you are like my husband though, and think that between football and pumpkin-flavored-anything autumn just can’t be beat!

During our staycation, we decided to ditch the to-do list and head over to the local farm for some old fashioned pumpkin picking.

And by pumpkin picking, I mean, “choose a pumpkin from the pile”, not actually getting down and picking them.  Although that would have been fun.  We were greeted by dozens of varieties of pumpkins, from Cinderella Squash to Lumina.  We were in Fall Harvest Heaven!

The sky was bright blue, and the pumpkins… so colorful!

First up: which variety to choose?  We browsed the rows (upon rows) of autumn goodness.

Here are a few of the varieties we found:

We decided to get pumpkins to represent the family, and chose accordingly.  I thought I’d picked the perfect pumpkins…

…but then *someone* finally stopped running for a moment and started hugging a massive pumpkin.  Out of the thousands of pumpkins she had run past, this is the one that spoke to her.

She hugged it, like, forever in Noodle time (2 minutes).

And kissed it.

It was dad who decided we HAD to have that pumpkin since it was Noodle-Approved.

I added a few special additions, like a lumina to hold my mums and a few minis for our table.  And a hibiscus.  Totally random, I know, but at $5.99 for this perennial could YOU have walked away?

Finally it was time for some pumpkin posing.

Keeping it real: moments after taking this photo, Noodle puked in the sawdust.  Just another day in the life of a reflux kid.  Don’t worry, if you visit that farm we cleaned it all up.  I never leave the house without burp cloths, a plastic bag, wet wipes, paper towels… sigh…