Grab a cup of coffee - this may be a long one! We've been quite busy around here, soaking up as much "fall" as possible...even if it hasn't really felt much like fall outside (at least not until TODAY - yay for cloudy, cool weather). We've taken trips to two different pumpkin patches, taken time to paint some pumpkins, decorated the house, collected quite an assortment of twigs and pine cones and nuts for a nature tray...and had more than our fair share of pumpkin pancakes! Man I love this time of year!
So this is my painted pumpkin. I have to tell you...I used to HATE my "doodling" type drawing and painting...but I recently took Stephanie Ackerman's online Random Creative Scrapple Doodle class, and I just love her! Highly recommend her classes! (And her blog - she's so encouraging and uplifting!)
The girls had fun painting their pumpkins too. Like their easy-clean-up outfits? LOL
Jeremiah really enjoyed the second pumpkin patch we went to (yeah, the pics are all out of order...sigh...I'm too lazy to fix them!). The ground was all covered in straw, and I let him have free reign. He had to taste it, of course!
And if the straw tasted good, surely the pumpkin would too, right?
I am amazed when I look at pictures of the kids - they always look so much older than when I look at them every day. They're growing up so fast.
We had actually met a couple other moms from our homeschooling group at this pumpkin patch and had lunch together. The kids had a great time playing together (and running from the swarms of bees!). No one got stung, thankfully. And they all had a great time on the tire swing.
The other pumpkin patch we went to was much larger - and though I hate that they end up making you spend a bunch of money on rides and jumpers and such for the kiddos, I do love the eye candy they have in their vast array of pumpkins, gourds, indian corn, etc. Tables and tables and tables of gorgeous fall colors!! And what a difference a year makes - last year, all three kids fit in this wagon!
The kids were enthralled with the animals - from afar. They had no desire to go into the petting zoo. Ha ha.
Climbing on the hay castle is always fun - and free.
We splurged on a pulled quad ride. The kids thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a bit bumpy for my suiting. LOL
Ahh...these tables just make my heart go pitter patter!!
Even the girls were enthralled with the freshly picked and washed gourds that were being brought in from the field.
And we all took our first trip into and out of a corn maze. There were 4 hidden boxes in the maze which we had to locate and do crayon rubbings on to form a completed picture...we thought we were NEVER going to find them all! (And it didn't help that there weren't crayons at some of the stations, so we had to use pieces of corn stalks and rocks to do parts of the rubbings!) Glad to have experienced it once...but I left feeling all scratchy on my arms, with flashbacks of detassling corn in high school during the summer, and don't think I'll ever need to repeat the corn maze experience!
So there you have it. Our fall activities thus far. What about you? We'll continue this weekend with a trip to DisneyLand on Friday, to celebrate Jeremiah's first birthday (which is actually on Monday)...and then attend our church's Hallelujah Night on Halloween. I've got a couple of cute Halloween projects to show you on Halloween, too, so stay tuned!
