"I'll sit in that pumpkin patch until the Great Pumpkin appears." - Linus

Family activities don't have to cost much. Most of the time, ours cost nothing. Now is the time of year for families to head to a pumpkin patch or apple barn. A couple of weekends ago, my little family went to a local farm that benefits rescued farm animals. We had no idea it existed until I searched pumpkinpatchesandmore.org. It's a great resource for finding local produce, farm tours, corn mazes, and even Christmas tree farms.

Of course, I had to snap the obligatory harvest picture that my kids all enjoy. After twenty-five takes, we may actually have one to give the grandparents. At least one day I hope they'll appreciate that I try to make matching outfits from their plethora of hand-me-downs. I think it's cute, so they must tolerate it year after year.

Pumpkin patches really are a great family outing. The visit can be as short or as long as you want. And a big pumpkin is a souvenir I would purchase for my home anyway. In our case, this year we also supported a good cause for rescued animals, so warm fuzzies all around.

By the way, we also bought a cool blueish gray pumpkin for the center of our table. It's called a jarradale pumpkin (from what I can tell by researching online.) For some reason, my son keeps calling it a moon pumpkin. We'll see how pumpkin bread turns out with that beauty! Maybe I'll call it moon bread.