Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins!

I love Fall, it is my favorite time of the year!  The weather this year has been ideal autumn weather, crisp foggy mornings but then the sun comes out during the day and warms your face, then the crispy coolness of night sets in.  The stars always seem just a little bit brighter in the fall than any other time of the year.  I love how no looks at you strange for staying inside all day and knitted items suddenly become all the rage.  Samuel has already been wearing his mittens & hat from last year...the ones I knitted of course.

Though what I really love most (and this is only in the last 8 years or so) is pumpkins.  I've always loved the look of a bright orange pumpkin, but I will confess that I haven't always loved eating goodies made from pumpkin.  Not to worry, I am completely cured of this and now look forward to this time of year where you can get pumpkin in everything from your pie to your latte to scone...yummy!

Yesterday was Veteran's day so all the kids were at home.  Husband let me sleep in most of the morning so I had lots of energy to do domestic things like cook pumpkins.  Since I had so much of this 'creative energy' I thought I'd do a post about our adventures in pumpkin land.  Which of course begins with the pumpkins:

5 pumpkins for five kids and they didn't cost us a dime!  That is of course because the pumpkins are home grown from Gramma's garden.  The kids were so excited to go and pick out their own pumpkins and help Thaddeus get his own small pumpkin.

So I put Elsa down for a nap, Thaddeus was being shockingly good & Vinny was resting and I figured it was as good a time as any to cook up the pumpkins.  I cut them in half, showed Lincoln and Samuel how to get all the pumpkin seeds out and then set to work.  When we were done our pumpkins looked like this:

I had the oven warmed to 350 put a little water in the pans and put all five pumpkins in the oven to bake for and hour.  The minute I had the pumpkins in the oven Samuel wanted me to turn on the oven light so he could watch them cook.

The two of them sat there for a little while but then got bored so we made the most of that hour by washing pumpkin seeds, making gluten-free rice krispie treats (we used Enviro Kids Koala Crispies, which the boys affectionately call kitty cereal), & making Chex Muddy Buddies.  Yes we were busy! 

Thaddeus happily sitting in his high chair while we cooked pumpkins.

Finally the timer went off and I took the pumpkins out and pureed them using our new blender (which is awesome).  With minimal work but a commitment of time we soon had this:

I know!  Look at all that pumpkin!  Over 16 cups!  I made scones & a crustless pumpkin pie but didn't even come close to making a dent in it.  Oh, well I make room in the freezer and maybe have pumpkin to last me for a year...hahaha!  Okay so maybe have enough pumpkin for the rest of this year.