Here are some of the things we’ve been up to recently.

This was the inside of the pumpkin when I cut it in half. I love the way you can see three distinct sections.

This is the pumpkin after I baked it.

The pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting were wonderful as usual.

This was my first experience with a spaghetti squash. I will not be giving up pasta for squash, but it was really neat to see how it got its name. It was tasty with our Chicken Parmesan, too.

My wonderful husband carves our pumpkin every year. I think he does a great job!

I made a batch of pepper jelly with jalepeños from our garden.

We dressed up to visit grandparents. I made my costume and the pirate costumes. Colin was Thomas a few years ago and passed the costume down to Eamon since he loves trains.

Oh yeah…and I turned 30!!! Here is the birthday card I got from my husband…a “mock” newspaper/tabloid article. It even includes my name misspelled once, which is a necessity to be real, as anyone in the printing industry knows!

Every year about this time we take a trip to Burt’s Pumpkin Farm. My husband says it just doesn’t feel like fall until we’ve been. This year my daddy was visiting from South Georgia and we invited him to tag along. It was chilly, and that was great because it’s always strange going to the pumpkin patch wearing shorts and a t-shirt. When we go, we let Colin pick out a pumpkin for us to carve and Eamon gets to pick out one for cooking. To cook it, I just cut the pumpkin in half horizontally, scrape out the seeds and strings, put the cut sides down onto a cookie sheet, and bake in a 300 degree oven for about 40 minutes. Then, I peel off the skin and use it for various pumpkin recipes. Our favorite is pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting. I will try to post pictures of the goodies after I bake them. We also enjoy toasting some of the pumpkins seeds for a tasty snack.