4 Little Pumpkins

This weekend we packed up the family after school Friday to make our way south for the Morton Pumpkin Festival.  Chris and Georgia were our gracious hosts for fabulous home cooked meals, great seats at the pumpkin parade and our generous guides to all things pumpkin!  Orange clothing and food made with pumpkin abounded!  Pumpkin pancakes were our first treat on Saturday morning and then we made our way to our specially reserved parade seats in front of Eli's fabulous coffeehouse (a Morton favorite). 

William and Erin were equipped with plastic bags to gather candy and other treats.  The parade was wonderful with all sorts of floats, bands and animals.  We loved it all!!  Here is the whole family waiting for the parade to start.  We had great seats in the shade that Chris and Georgia staked out for us earlier in the week.  We all were amazed at how early they said the townspeople would put out their chairs. 

William's favorite float had the CAT tractor on it....we had some in depth discussions about how he thought they got the tractor up there.  

Erin's favorite part of the parade was the pumpkin carriage where all the young pumpkin princesses got to ride.  She wanted to know if she moved to Morton if she could ride in the carriage next year!

Later in the day we headed out to Ackerman Farms where Gavin is currently working picking pumpkins.  It is a lovely family-owned farm (I think he said 4th generation) in Morton and even though we got there close to closing time, the owner was very generous with us and gave us a hayrack ride and we were able to peruse the pumpkins and see all of their animals. 

 

Erin and William loved feeding all of the goats.  There were lots of baby pygmy goats in the pen as well.  They were so darling and we were all impressed with their agility when Mr. Ackerman went in the pen to grab one for the kids to pet.  He was a three-week old goat named Salty and he was a twin (his twin was Pepper).

 The entire visit was lots of fun and William really took to Aunt Georgia.  He wanted her to ride in the car with him and sit next to him at dinner.  Before we left he asked me if I would take his picture with Aunt Georgia!

You can see how happy he was! Then we went out to the car to find a surprise stow-a-way.  Erin and William would have happily taken her home but I am sure the Morton Glynn's would be very sad so we had to kick her out before we drove home.