The Pumpkin Patch

Yay! Grand Forks has a pumpkin patch! We took a drive out to the pumpkin patch on Saturday. It was just 5 mi north of the base. We drove up and saw a pumkin patch of oversized mostly rotten pumkins and almost drove away thinking that the patch had been picked clean already but a lady walked out of her house and we asked her about the pumkins and she said "oh no this is not it, there is another field beyond the trees and most of the pumpkins are in the barn"

So we headed into the barn and the kiddos picked out their pumpkins. Cody stayed home because he was still waking up when we left at 10 in the morning...so we picked a pumpkin for him. Jaiden wasn't too interested in the pumpkins or taking photos with them. She was a bit tired and cranky from a nasty cough and yucky nose. It had been a rough night for us all.

Jared enjoyed weighing the pumkins on the scale and made sure that they were in precise weight allowances for their size. What that means is, he didn't want Jaiden's pumkin to be too heavy for her to pick up...so we picked a five pounder, which she had no interest in holding. After dropping the pumkins off in the car we wandered over to the hay bale maze and the cutouts, where we snapped some cute photos. Jaiden started to get into the spirit of it a bit after that but she was mostly interested in napping so she was in a bit of a trance. The boys carved their pumpkins while she napped and I painted a face on hers. It was a gorgeous fall day, the sun was warm and bright and the air was only a bit chill. While the boys were carving pumkins, I made some pumkin and banana muffins (separately) They turned out yummy! Nothing beats a hot from the oven pumkin muffin and they are so simple to make. Here's the recipe:

Pumkin Muffins
1 box of spice cake
1 15oz can of pumpkin
Mix these two ingredients (I add a can of water to make them smoother) then fill muffin cups and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. I did them for 25 min and they came out yummy but a little bit gooey...I think 5 more minutes would have made them a little fluffier.

Banana Muffins
Mix 2 eggs, 1 c sugar, 1 stick of butter with overipe bananas, add in
1 c. whole grain flour, 1 c oatmeal, 1/2 c or so of all purpose flour
Mix well, add water if too thick and drop into muffin cups. Bake for 30 min at 350.
I added chocolate chips to the tops of mine when they came out of the oven as an afterthought...I will add them to the batter next time.

The highlight of the weekend though was of course the Boston/Cleveland game. Game 6 on Saturday night was very exciting. Boston actually played like they wanted to win and smoked the Indians out of the running in Sunday nights game. Cody was so excited after Saturdays game that he gave me a big bear hug that lifted me off my feet! For Cody this is monumental (he doesn't usually show much emotion or give hugs) I asked him which was more exciting, Boston in the playoffs or anticipation of starting his first job...of course Boston won by a landslide! He has been a fan since he was just a small boy and it's exciting to see your team come out of the playoffs a winner.