Grow Pumpkins on Minecraft

My big discovery today was that if you find a pumpkin and put it in the crafting table, it turns into pumpkin seeds. Yay. Then you can plant them the same way you plant wheat. So now you don't have to settle for randomly finding a pumpkin patch. You can grow as many as you want to. Most of what I've learned on Minecraft was through tutorials, so it's a nice surprise when I figure out something all by myself. Now if I could just figure out how to pick up lava in my bucket without dying. Anyone know?