Peter Piper Picked A Peck of Perfect Pumpkins

I think I'm living in Leave it to Beaver. Except that I've actually never seen Leave it to Beaver. But if it's what I think it is - the idyllic life, then that was today. I'm officially part of a Mom's group that covers three wards (and others who are friends of these moms) and it's a pretty might awesome group. They even have a yearly tubing camp out in August. So although I've joined I've never actually read anything they post, and so have had yet to actually do anything with them. But then my visiting teacher, Sarah Jones told me about a pumpkin picking activity, and offered to drive me there.

Today we drove up in a crisp, cold, grey morning. The brilliant leaves surrounding the roads enlivened our drive. We were even dressed for the occasion. My sister Camilla sent me a package I received yesterday, which contained, among other nice goodies, flower hair clips for Lydia that actually stay in. Yes, it's amazing. I strapped an Autumn orange and red flower in today, and Lydia wore her Halloween Pumpkin themed shirt that she's worn for two days and nights straight. What can I say? She loves the shirt. She loves pumpkins. (And don't worry, I finally retired the shirt tonight to the dirty clothes hamper). I wore my first sweater of the season, a striped green, heather brown, cream, orange and red one from American Eagle, although I bought it at the good old DI. (Why am I describing our clothes? Because still no camera. If anyone has an old digital camera they're not using, email me, I'll give you my address, you send it to me, and then you'll get pictures. Until then this blog will keep sounding like bad Mormon romance where they always describe what the girl is wearing, and it's always weird.)

The Farm we went to, called MadMax, is run by a family that had a son with an illness of some sort and he died at age five. Everything runs by donation, and a hundred percent of the money goes to the Columbus Children's Hospital for kids with illnesses. Have you ever noticed that if you have to pay for an experience as you do it you compare the experience to the price you paid, to see if it was worth it, etc? Oh, well I do, because I'm cheap and lame like that. But whenever something is donations (especially for a good cause), I always give more that I would have wanted to pay if it was priced, and I feel great about everything the whole time. So, basically I felt great the whole time.

We had to wait while the tractor pulled hayride wagon took a load, so Lydia sat in a Green and Orange tractors and pretended to drive, and then in a 'Gator that's actually used, which she liked most of all because of the yellow seats. She also managed to pull gloves out of a compartment and other paraphenalia that, don't worry, I put back. I got a burnt Orange (Burnt Sienna? Raw Sienna? What in the world is Sienna?) huge Mum plant for our kitchen table to dressify the house (also by donation, but with price amount). Being outside and in the country with many plants and tractors already felt amazing to me, and we hadn't actually gone to the main attraction yet!

Then after a fun tractor ride we arrived in the pumpkin field. Although you're in the field for about half an hour, it only took us the first five minutes to find our pumpkins, since we wanted small ones, and most people want large ones, so they were all easily accessible. Good thing too, because since I'm a city girl I brought Elisheva in a stroller, unlike all of the other moms who had carrier things. I have slings and a baby backpack thing, but somehow the whole picking your own pumpkins thing hadn't made me think about how a stroller was supposed to go overland to find pumpkins.

The whole experience was great; Lydia loved being outside, and loved the tiny pumpkin she found. She even came downstairs tonight while stalling the final bedtime and hugged and kissed one of the pumpkins, while telling it, "I just love you, Pumpkin!" When she's that cute when she stalls, I'm a sucker for it. Especially since she next came to me and gave me a hug and told me she loved me.

While waiting for the tractor, I had good Mom conversation, which is fun because it's the first time in my life that my social group has really included Mothers (large scale). I don't want to discuss parenting, or being pregnant, or whatever it is that Moms talk about all of the time, but on occasion it's fun. Then we went out to lunch with another mom, Bethany at Culver's, the most amazing fast food place ever. They make custard, and today's flavor was Pumpkin Pecan and it was yummy! I didn't even feel bad about randomly going out to eat because my darling sister sent me some money as part of the package, and told me to count it as winning the lottery without even entering (number six).

My day was still perfect, even when there were tons of June bugs that crawled out of the Mums while we were driving, and we spent a lot of time enticing the bugs to the window so we could flick them out. I even littered for the first time in my life when I used a piece of paper to lure them onto, and as I released them out the window the paper flew off too. But the Leave it to Beaverness feeling still stayed. Although I wonder if Beaver's mom would have glued back on a picturesque pumpkin stem after Lydia broke it off?

I love doing more than just sitting at home with my kids while my hair isn't brushed, because I once again can't find my hairbrush (although to be honest, that happened today anyway, so I just put my hair in a clip for the trip.) I feel more alive when I go places and see people. And being part of a group (that I shall now start checking, so I don't miss out on more amazingness) helps me in achieving this, since I basically just showed up.I find that when I get out and celebrate seasons or holidays that they are so much more meaningful to me.

All to often I wonder why a holiday, like this last fourth of July, passed by with no memories at all. Perhaps because we actually didn't do anything for it, including fireworks. And now that I've decided to love my life (because as Tali mentioned in a comment, yes I do think a lot of feeling settled and loving my life happened because I decided and made an effort to do so more than circumstances) I'm rededicating myself to going out and experience a lot more activities. I can already hear Avram's silent groan when he reads this - his social/activity tolerance level is much lower than mine.

Any ideas on how to live October/Halloween/Thanksgiving to their fullest potential?