'Punkins' Make Me Happy

Tali and Roo pick pumpkins in the Rhodes family pumpkin patch at our annual gathering. My aunt and uncle let the whole family select a pumpkin of their own and then we roast hot dogs around the campfire and enjoy a bunch of (mostly pumpkin assorted/flavored) treats. My children picked tiny ones for some reason. Uncle Brad and Aunt Tammy know how to grow them HUGE. A very happy FHE this week.

Our very own pumpkin patch yeilded much beauty this year. Me and the girls loaded them into our black hand cart and hauled the harvest to the front porch. It felt good to hack at the vines and reclaim the southernmost piece of our lawn, I have been letting the punkins just take over where they would.

I have had a few emotional break downs this week, yesterday was the most colorful. I freaked out at the girls for destroying the nicely sorted laundry piles in my room. (I was busy with my toilette brush and disinfecting Clorox wipes in the laundry bathroom.) They also brought in a whole pile of toys, a crumby bag of potato chips, built a fort under my chair, messed up my curtains and undecorated the living room so that they could have a festive Halloween picnic in the laundry baskets, in my room. I lost it! I ordered them out and then buried my face in my hands and balled. Seriously, I wept it all out.

A few minutes after my eruption Roo came tiptoeing into my room holding her blankie out to me. She had a repentant face and a look that said, "This will help Mom." And, "Please still love me!" I clung to her and the blankie for a minute and cried a little more. Talia came and put her head in my lap. We had a little talk, apologized all around, re-sorted the laundry, made the bed (again!) and I insisted that every last chip crumb be picked up.

Oh, my word. What a morning. I haven't felt emotional with this pregnancy at all until now. I feel like I have only so much 'cool' in me for a day, and when it is gone, it's GONE! After I got the house in relative order, and all machines a-buzzing, we went out into the fresh October air and got to work with the pumpkins. Just what I needed. As I was taking these last two pictures I kept thinking, "Pumpkins make me happy. Thank goodness for pumpkins."