Our Kind of Happiness: pumpkins & punkins

Guess who found pumpkins!!!! ME! I did, I did! And they're not just regular old pumpkins either. They're big, juicy, fat pumpkins that are perfect!

Even though the weather has gotten cool and we've pulled out pants and hoodies, it just didn't feel like Fall without pumpkins hanging around. That's no longer a problem after today. In the past, I've seen pumpkins at ONE booth at the open air market here in Haeundae, and they've been kept in the back. I've never seen anyone buy even one, and I've never seen a pumpkin ANYWHERE else. For that reason, I was crossing all of my fingers and toes as we walked to the market today with hopes of buying some of those pumpkins to decorate our house with.

When we got to this booth, I was so happy and relieved to see an even bigger stack of pumpkins than I had seen in the past. I sent Talton in to pick out two for us, since that's all we could manage to tote back home along with everything else we had in the stroller. I'll be going back for a couple more tomorrow, before other people find out where this hidden stash of pumpkins are. ;) It would be nice to find some baby pumpkins too, but let's be real...beggars can't be choosers. :)

The pumpkins were really dirty so I tried washing as much gunk off of them as I could.

I can't wait to decorate these bad boys! Because we're not going to carve them, I've already started making a list of possible ways for the boys to decorate them (stickers, paint, gluing things on, etc.). I also made a Halloween playlist of music to start playing to get us all in the mood. I love this time of year!

I'm sad that we don't have a pumpkin patch to go to here, but I am grateful that I found pumpkins at all. I'm also excited to make new, different kinds of Halloween memories with the boys while we're here. :) One day in the future when we are back home and go to the pumpkin patch, I'll think back fondly to this time when we went on a hunt for pumpkins in the South Korean market. :)

OH, I almost forgot to tell you about something pretty funny and very cool! While we were at the market buying pumpkins, an old Korean lady hobbled over to the boys to talk to them, shake their hands, and rub their cheeks. Well, as is the norm, Connar jerked away, even though we've been coaching him on how to just say "hi" to someone even if he's not interested, and Parker smiled, waved, and said, "Hi!". This lady then reached in her pocket, pulled out some a 1000 won bill (about 90 cents U.S. money), and put it in Parker's hands before tapping me on the butt and walking away. We've heard of this happening before (the money part, not the tapping on the butt part), especially on Children's Day which is in May, but not just because the kid's cute. Not 3 minutes later when I stopped at another booth to buy some fruit, the lady selling me the fruit picked up an orange from her table, rubbed it on her apron to clean it, and handed it to Parker. Man, this kid is either way cuter than even I, his mom, can see, or he has a magnetic, sweet personality that just draws people in. Either way, I nonchalantly told Connar that he needs to start saying hi to people if he wants some free money or food. And I kid you not, Connar went out of his way to get people's attention all afternoon to tell them hi and wave & smile at them. That boy catches on fast! :)

In addition to getting our hands on these fantastic pumpkins, we took our own little punkins to the park to get some of their boy energy out. :) Connar loves interacting with the other kids, which is so fun to watch. Parker, on the other hand, is happy to go dig in the dirt and find rocks that he secretly wishes he could put in his mouth and sometimes does the second we blink. I just love these punkins of mine!

I know this girl isn't a punkin of mine, but she's definitely someone's sweet 'lil punkin. She and Connar had fun chasing each other on the slide. Her pink bow even lit up!