Tag Archives: pumpkin

Thanksgiving Traditions

Posted in children, Family, Holidays, Kids, parenting, thanksgiving, Uncategorized by

As some of you know we have Thanksgiving Traditions here that the kids LOVE! Our annual pumpkin toss and turkey shoot.

I thought for sure the kids would build contraptions, but instead they decided to choose smaller pumpkins and use lacrosse sticks to chuck their little pumpkins down the canyon.

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Mom won, of course with her magical bowling roll with a twist manure  haha… it was a close tie for second place…and oddly several pumpkins went farther down the canyon than any other pumpkins have in the past, we must be perfecting our throws!

I just found out this year that for many years my good friends thought our annual turkey shoot was actually shooting our thanksgiving turkey! …nope, we shoot turkey targets! Sometimes that means photos of turkeys and sometimes it means surgical gloves blown up and decorated like turkeys…but it’s always just a turkey target. Like many other Americans we buy our turkey at the market.

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Both kids had definite kills!

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Our paper turkeys tasted delicious! Haha!

Our Annual Pumpkin Toss

Posted in children, Experiments, Family, Homeschooling, Kids, parenting, Science, Uncategorized by

Happy Thanksgiving

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Before we had kids, my husband and I both felt Thanksgiving was a terribly boring holiday for kids. We decided to make it a more kid friendly fun holiday and turns out it is one of our favorites now! One of the events we host is our annual pumpkin toss and the kids love it! As Joy from INSIDE OUT would say, it’s a core memory in the making!  The day after Halloween I buy anywhere from 75-100 pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. They sit patiently waiting for Thanksgiving Day.

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We try many techniques, under hand, over hand, left hand, right hand, kick it, roll it, smash it, catapult it, fling it, etc…and every year we think, that darn bush, my pumpkin would have won if that bush wasn’t in the way! Next year we should trim that bush back!

When the event is over, we hike down the canyon and smash all the pumpkins open, which is great fun! We are hoping to one day have our own wild pumpkin patch down in the canyon, but to date no random pumpkin plants. We also like to smash them open so the wild life can enjoy the Thanksgiving feast! We see rabbits eating the pumpkins and assume many other critters nibble away too, like wild pigs, coyotes, fox, birds, etc..

I think the kids are getting clever enough now that next year they might be building projects that start months in advance to really get the pumpkins flying! Maybe that could be a homeschool science project! Hmm my wheels are turning! Research project, building project, this could be good!

We hope everyone in the states had a nice Thanksgiving and are ready for the holiday season ahead, which is blowing right past at lightening speed!