Pumpkin plants

Last fall we bought a pie pumpkin, took it apart, roasted some seeds, cooked the fruit, mashed it and made pumpkin bread. It was a fun time. We don't celebrate Halloween so my kids would have no exposure to what the inside of a pumpkin is like otherwise. And every kid needs to squish their hands in pumpkin yuck, don't they? We also saved some seeds (not roasted) to use for counting and activities like that. So this spring rolled around and we were talking about planting gardens and how plants come from seeds and I got the bright idea to try and germinate some of our pumpkin seeds. I say try b/c quite honestly, I was skeptical. Can I really take a seed out of a pumpkin, let it dry up, count with it all winter and then 6 months later actually expect it to grow just b/c I put it in water? Turns out I can. So we germinated 2 pumpkin seeds and moved them to a small pot inside once they started sprouting. I was worried b/c they were growing much faster than I had anticipated. I was hoping to grow them inside for a while, them transfer them to big pots outside and hopefully take them when we move. But not at the rate they were growing. But the kids took care of that problem by breaking both plants :( So I thought we'd give it another shot (would you believe it worked the second time, too? Amazing). But now I was worried we wouldn't get any pumpkins b/c I thought it was too late and they wouldn't have time to ripen before it got too cold. I was telling a fellow (and more experienced) homeschooler my dilemma and she told me that I actually started the second set at just the right time. You're SUPPOSED to plant pumpkins later b/c they ripen in the cold. If they get too big before it gets cold then they jsut rot and never ripen. So now I'm really excited about our pumpkin plants again and hopefully the kids will see the whole plant cycle and we'll get to make pumpkin bread in the fall from our very own pumpkins grown from last year's seeds. The plants are just about too big for their little pot, so I need to get them moved. I'm trying to figure out if I should let the vines go over the edge of the pot unto the ground or if I should try and keep them in the pot. Anybody know? We hope to move in the next 3 weeks or sooner, but there's no tellign when it will actually be.