Happy Halloween everyone! Only Anna got to trick-or-treating tonight because my sweet Dominic was sick again this year. I’ll take him to the doctor tomorrow, I feel so bad for him! He’s been sick since Friday but was feeling a little better yesterday so I was able get a few photos of them in their costumes. Hopefully I’ll get those and Anna’s TOTing photos up later in the week.
So on with the pumpkins!!! I was on my own last weekend with Anna and Dominic since all the other grown-ups in my life were working, so I took the kids to the Elgin Christmas Tree Farm for their annual pumpkin patch. They didn’t open until noon which is a nightmare time of day for photographers (harsh light), so I didn’t expect to get any good photos. But I was pleasantly surprised to get a couple of cute ones… they kids actually got along well!
Here the farm had a little photo-op setup with the scarecrows, pumpkins, and bales of hay. I caught the kids talking to each other… they are usually griping so this was rare!
“Hey guys, look at me and smile!” Gasp, they did it! And look at their legs. OMG, too cute! Tee hee!
We went on the hayride which scared Anna so we got off at the little playground area and hung out there for a while. Dominic looked so serious here, I wonder what he was thinking?
So there was something new added to the play area… a boat! Yep, a boat. I don’t know why it was there but the kids wanted to play on it. So I got Anna to sit first. The light is totally not ideal.
Dominic’s turn! Of course, he had to drive. 🙂
I have a thing for old tractors. I took this same shot last year… and then had better light but overdid the processing with texture and color. I did a different perspective this year and kept it clean.
Dominic climbed up on top of the bales of hay to play. King of the hay!
Since Anna was scared of the hayride, we walked back to the front of the farm. This was our view. Pretty spectacular!
Right before getting to the corn maze, there was a picnic bench under a tree. The kids were a little tired, so we sat for a minute.
Anna was creeped out by the corn maze so we didn’t do it which disappointed Dominic. We had walked past the corn maze and found this little covered area with benches. They sat and I asked Anna to put her arm around her brother. Awww!
After getting back to the front of the farm, we let Dominic go through the crazy maze. He did in record time. He was a really good sport about not riding the rest of the hay ride, so I wanted him to have some fun.
Then we picked out some pumpkins. Dominic wanted a huge one of course but in exchange agreed to stand in the patch for one last photo. Darn that bright sun anyway! I’ve seen some gorgeous pumpkin patch photos from some of my other photographer friends and really wanted to get some too. Sigh.
So on Wednesday last week, the kids got out of school early and Jenny and Chris came over to carve the pumpkins. We had BIG plans and intricate blueprints, we were ready!
Dominic had to come check out what Jenny was doing.
Chris was being our inaugural carver. We invested in an electric carving knife. Chris at the ready!
Anna was anxious about the noise from the carving knife but she got used to it pretty quickly.
Anna wanted to paint her pumpkin so I put an old t-shirt on her and let her get started.
Ewww!!! Pumpkin guts! It’s like childbirth, you always forget how awful it is until next time.
I was in charge of helping Dominic with his pumpkin. My turn with the knife, whee!!!
Well, hi, Dominic! (That gap in his front teeth is not from a lost tooth… he hasn’t lost one up there yet. But one of them is very loose!)
Chris was working very intently.
He was the only one to successfully finish his pumpkin during our little event here. Anna’s pumpkin ended up being a dog, Jenny made Mario, and Chris made Mau5kin. Dominic’s rotted over the weekend so we never did make his spider pumpkin. Poor guy. He really got gypped this Halloween.
Here is Jenny’s Mario pumpkin all lit up! Anna’s turned out cute too but we didn’t finish it until the next day so I didn’t get a finished picture of it.
Halloween photos coming soon!!!
