There’s a plethora of pumpkins up in here!
I finally (FINALLY!) had a free Saturday, so this morning my Mom and I bundled up against the 45° chill, grabbed a hot Starby’s to keep our paws warm, and headed down to the Farmers’ Market where there were pumpkins at every turn!
Little ones,
lumpy ones,
long handled ones,
and everything in between.
I found these flawless pumpkins for $3 each, and picked up two for Ben and me.
It was all fun and games ’til I hoifed the one with the crooked stem into the car when we were leaving, only to have it snap off, fall 4 feet to the ground and roll away down the parking ramp…NOOOO!
Miraculously it remained perfectly intact – just got a little trim off the top!!
"I thought we were going to have pumpkin mash on our hands for a second there!" my Mom exclaimed. Pumpkin mash. HAHAHA. I could not stop laughing at this. 
The only thing competing for pumpkin’s reign over the market, were the apples.
Any and all varieties, in crates and barrels by the dozens. I can’t wait to go apple picking sometime in the next couple of weeks! 
The rest of the market was overflowing with a cornucopia of Fall produce, whose dazzling colors made me insanely giddy. I could not stop snapping photos!
#cantstopwontstop
This baby bulldog also kind of stole my heart. Right? Look at her pink collar!
When all was said and done, I came home with the aforementioned pumpkins, some mini punkin’s (4/$1!), Eastern Iowa Honeycrisps and fresh apple cider.
Does it get any cuter than this?!
Actually, it does.
After the market Finn came over to my parent’s house to spend the day!
He and Grandma had a blast playing together,
and since the Iowa Hawkeyes played this afternoon, we taught him how to shout, "Go Hawkeyes!!!"
Maybe you didn’t hear me?!
YOU! DID YA’ HEAR ME???
I said, GOOOO HAWKEYES!!! Besides being hystorable (hysterical + adorable) it must’ve worked. The Hawkeyes beat Louisiana, 45-17. Whee!
Well, the rest of the afternoon shall be filled with laundry and maybe a quick nap before heading over to a friend’s house for some girl time tonight. 
Before I go though, I wanted to announce the winners of the Chocolate Chip Cherry Torte Larabar Giveaway. Congrats to:
Jen: Being home with my 2 week old baby girl
Sarah Sue: The highlight of my week will be the Hawkeye game and my youngest daughter’s soccer game. Finally they are are different times this week
Yahoo! Email your address to IowaGirlEats@gmail.com, and I’ll get those right out to you.
Happy Saturday everyone!
~~~~~
When it comes to carving pumpkins, do you go the traditional jack o’ lantern route, or get fancy with stencils and such?
omg Finn is the most comical, cutest little kid ever!!!!!!!!
i die.
I am seriously laughing 100% of the time I am around him!!!
Have you tried the tacos at Tacopocalypse (2nd & Court)? They rock! Give them a try sometime.
No I haven’t! I walked passed them today and their food looked awesome, but it was only 7:45 so I wasn’t too hungry yet. Definitely next time though!
awww, he is so precious!
Hi,
Your pictures are awesome. What kind of camera do you use? ☺
Thanks Katie! I use a Canon Digital Elph when out and about (like at the Farmers’ Market) and Nikon D3000 at home!
haha, super fun post. I was surprised to read it was already so cold there. We’re still in the 70s and 80s here in KS. Great market though! What beautiful produce they had. Those pumpkins and apples were just beautiful.
Cute pictures of Finn, too. What a cutie!!
do you get up that early on a saturday naturally or do you just try to stay on a schedule?
We got up early on purpose so we could beat the crowds, but it’s really hard for me to sleep in past 7am anyways. My body’s just used to being up early!
I’m always so jealous of your Farmer’s Market posts! Ours is a pathetic twelve vendors.
We usually carve our pumpkins, just sharpie and knife style but time slipped away from us last year and weren’t able to!
I can’t wait till next weekend so we can go the Farmer’s Market. Early Hawkeye games and tailgating limit my fall Farmer’s Market visits
I’m looking forward to loading up on pumpkins, apples, mums and squash I’m getting giddy just thinking about it. As for our pumpkin carving, the hubs goes all out and uses the stencils … the kids think it’s super cool.
BTW made your Pumpkins Spice Mini Muffins today for tailgating. One word…addictive! I think I ate 20 of them myself. YIKES! Football games are sabotaging my fitness goals for sure.
Have a GREAT weekend and Go Hawks (did ya hear me?) GO HAWKS!!!!
I usually go with classic pumpkin carving, but last year Neal and I carved a tigerhawk into our pumpkins! It was awesome!
What a great time y’all had. I’m jealous that y’all are in the 40′s. It’s still rather warm here in DC.
send those pumpkins and that weather here now!
Do you have a lot of tree color there?? I am at my parent’s house in Minneapolis this week (Twin Cities Marathon in ONE WEEK) and I am so disappointed in the green trees!!! : )
Yeah, all the colors started REALLY turning this week. So much red everywhere, I love it!
This post made me so happy!! I am SO excited for fall!!
That tree is gorgeous by the way..eeek I can’t wait for cold weather here!
Oh my goodness, those little things of cider are so stinking cute!!
Last year I made some owls sitting on a tree branch.. stencils make me feel like it’s easier to make something right!
I am really jealous of the Iowa farmer’s market! It looks amazing every time!
Luckily our kids keep us carving. They have a pumpkin walk/maze at their school each year. My son is into doing crazy scary stuff so last year he did the cannibal jack-o-lantern – giant pumpkin with a couple of mini carved pumpkins in it’s mouth.
My daughter loves the cute stencil type. They always turn out SO good! The bummer is we have to wait until the very last minute to carve because here in Phoenix they go bad REALLY fast.
I heard you better get pumpkins while you can (including canned!). There’s a pumpkin shortage again this year due to Hurricane Irene
45 degrees?! Holy coolness! I’m a little jealous! Lol. I’m loving all the pumpkin/apples/signs of fall out there.
ps. Your nephew is too cute!
I get fancy! My two best pumpkins to date are a pumpkin version of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and a replica of the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince cover art. Wishing I had better pictures of them to post somewhere, but they were soooo gorge! Each one took me like, six hours from start to finish.
That is our Baby Bulldog! Her name is Kirby and we are glad you like her. She had a great time at the Farmer’s Market as did we. She must be somewhat famous cause another person we mknow actually recognized her from this blog.
You should try making pumpkin soup or risotto with some of those beautiful pumpkins!