The Carving of the Pumpkins

And so begins the delectable delights of the season. With purchased pumpkins from Foodland, at a totally abysmal price of $0.59 a pound, having not been able to arrange the pumpkin patch this year, we commence the holidays. I have always wondered at the Harvest Celebration ritual in which you force a gourd to reliquish its innards in the name of all things ghoulish. But oh, how I love the smell of burning pumpkin. And the squishy-ness. And how Owen always says, "I want to do it all myself." Yet I have never bought that fourth pumpkin for myself. This year, he at least deigned to spoon out some guts. Which Ruth promptly ate. And ate. And ate some more. I was at a loss as to how exactly I could stop her when I was covered in orange goo. Eventually, the high chair came into my view, and with a cookie, the pumpkin feast ceased.

Abra did an awesome job, all by herself. It's the squinty one on the right. Jeff's is on the left; he said he was going for maniacal laughter, but stopped just short at crazy giggle. Mine, I mean, Owen's, is the one that apparently looks like he's been sipping the pumpkin beer. Just one more round, friend. Owen always wants one that looks like the one Lucy draws on Charlie Brown's head, but I just can't bring myself to carve that many triangles so we settle for, "how many teeth do you want?"

I love this time of year. Even when the leaves don't change colors.

Just another manic, uh...Wednesday.

Today I am officially 31 weeks despite being in denial that I am pregnant at all. Ruth and I went for our walk down Mud Lane (yes, that is its real name) where she decided about 1/4 of the way to not walk anymore, thank you very much, and you will please carry me all the way home. Where is the stroller, you ask? We never want to stay IN the stroller so Mommy very foolishly decided that we would try out just doing the walk. Yes, I hear you all laughing together. So we rode mom's shoulders all the way home as that seemed like the best option. Almost four kids and I still choose poorly. Stop laughing, I mean it.

The doctors have moved me to getting seen every two weeks and I go to my diabetic lady before I see them. We have another ultrasound scheduled for the 28th of this month, when I will be roughly 34 weeks and still heavy in denial. I can however still see my toes. Perhaps this is a good thing as it means I have not gained very much weight and we are all proponents of that.

We are starting to think quite seriously about building a house here. This seems quite well, ridiculous in light of recent economic events. In fact, it seems kind of stupid. There seem to be lots of things that our little family could do, but not one concrete thing that we should do. This one however, does seem to be the best option. For now (cue the scary music). Since Jeff is in construction and knows all the right people for that, building seems to be better than buying for us. In the meantime, we will save our pennies (and nickles and quarters and benjamin's) and wait for as close to the right time as possible. Whatever that is.

While we are saving our pennies, we will continue to enjoy those things which are unique to living here as the right thing might be something else later. We will go to the beach in October and pick pumpkins from the patch in Hawi after. We will eat Chicken Katsu before we go trick or treating in Waikoloa, study the ancient hawaiian navigation techniques in Hilo and have cheeseburgers, and we will enjoy what we can with the time that is given us.