I Don't Like Pumpkin Patch Pictures A Little Less

Ang and I had initially planned that we'd visit the pumpkin patch all together, but it didn't work out this year.  We wanted to go on a day that Dave could go and Ang wanted to wait and go on a day that some of our other friends could go, so we went ahead and went without her.  As it turned out, those other friends couldn't join her after all, and so Ang didn't get to go to the patch at all as it was too far to be worth going by herself.  Instead, we decided to go together to a local parking lot patch.  Jack was excited to get to go to a pumpkin patch again, and this one had different activities than the one we had gone to the day before!

Jack really liked seeing the horses.  He didn't really want to touch them at first, but they sure were interested in him! I told him it was because he smelled like waffles and bananas (his usual breakfast).

Jack had a lot of fun looking at all the pumpkins and seeing the scarecrows.  He liked that the pumpkins were in rows and he started walking over them as though they were his railroad track!

When Ang finally got there, Austin and Jack wanted to go in the bounce house!

Sam seemed content to just sit in his stroller the whole time.  He was tired, but really didn't want to nap, so instead, he just chilled...

... and the older boys rode ponies!  Jack was really excited to get to ride the ponies, and even though he was a little disappointed that he couldn't ride the big horses.

After pony rides, Ang, Austin and McKenna fed a horse, and then the boys found some more animal pens.  There were cows and pigs and more horses and ponies!  Jack liked the cow, and Austin liked the pony (which he kept calling a cow).  The pony was very interested in Austin, too, and he kept trying to stick his nose through the slats every time Austin came by.

Then we tried the petting zoo.  If you can even call it a petting zoo.  Those poor animals must have had quite enough of kids messing with them, because they spent the whole time running away from the boys!  And poor Austin... one of the goats headbutted him when he got too close (I got a picture of it, too!)!  Luckily the goat was still sitting down and didn't hit the little guy square on.  Austin is a peanut, so if he had gotten him the poor kid definitely would have gone flying!  Jack is a lot bigger than Austin, so the goat didn't try to headbutt him, but he certainly got a great workout trying to stay away from him!  He did manage to get him once, but as soon as he realized that Jack had snuck up on him, he took off again!  It was really frustrating for the boys, though, to not be able to pet any of the animals, so they were really appreciative that the llama held still for them.  Austin enjoyed petting him, but Jack pet him once and declared that the llama was "too hot" and he wanted to leave the petting zoo (I guess the llama's fur was warm because it was basking in the sun...?  Anyway, Jack didn't like that). 

After that, we rode the ponies one more time before it was time to go home for lunch (his silly face was because he was telling me "But I thought I was going to ride the horse, not the pony!")

We had a fun time, and I was glad that we had decided to go.  The different activities were really fun for Jack, and he really enjoyed having his little buddy Austin there!  Next year, though, we are going to plan the pumpkin patch trip ahead of time!

 

I Don't Like Pumpkin Patch Pictures

I tend to dread thinking about taking pumpkin patch pictures every year.  I mean, I think pumpkin patch pictures are freaking adorable and I love how much fun Jack Jack has at the pumpkin patch... but the photos always turn out incredibly orange as every surface reflects the color from the many pumpkins that they are surrounded by.  So, in rebellion, when we went to the pumpkin patch this year I got a little creative with my edits.  Going through and fixing the color casts one by one just seemed so tedious to me and would take time (that I didn't have) to fix them, so I just did the same thing to all the pictures.  And turns out, I like it!

And you probably didn't care about any of that, and I'm rambling because I'm sitting in Panera all by myself and I actually have time to write whatever it is I want to write for once rather than trying to get the bare boned information in the post in between distractions from two adorable blonde-haired blue-eyed little boys.  Gosh I miss them when they're not with me.  It is nice to have a little time to myself, though... happy birthday to me!  Although since I'm scheduling this post to publish tomorrow, I should say happy birthday to Melinda and Aunt Cindy!  :D

I'm off topic again...

Okay, no more rambling from me... here is my pumpkin patch post!  Or one of them, since we went twice this year.  The first trip to the pumpkin patch was our family along with my mom and Luke!  We decided to go to the same patch as last year, since they had tractor rides and we knew how much Jack adored that last time!  And this time, Dave was able to join us!  He drove straight there after work and met us in the parking lot, and Jack was so excited to get there and see daddy!  I think he was more excited about daddy coming than he was about the fact that we were at the pumpkin patch!

Being at the pumpkin patch was not enough to make Jack forget that he was a train, and he still chugged along everywhere he went... pumping his drive sticks and shuffling his wheels.  Even when he found a pumpkin to pick up, he'd tell me "I'm going to use my grabber car with the crane on it!" and he'd make the sound effects of a crane's hydraulic system as he picked it up!

He also told me that the rows of pumpkins were actually pumpkin trains on their railroad tracks.

Luke, as you can see, was absolutely thrilled to be at the pumpkin patch!

Jack was excited to see Spongebob and Patrick(though I have no idea what Spongebob Squarepants has to do with pumpkins or Halloween!), and though Luke didn't know who they were he enjoyed poking his head through the hole!

Dave found a lady bug, which Jack found quite interesting.

Then Jack spied something...

That something was a tractor.

After the tractor drove by and we convinced Jack that we shouldn't go run and chase after it, we visited the big Pile 'O Pumpkins.

Then there was another tractor...


Jack and Dave played on the hay bales...


 ... and Jack and Luke each found pumpkins that they liked (but we weren't ready to buy them, yet!)

After wandering through the pumpkin fields, we found the hay bale maze!  Jack ran chugged through it pretty quickly and then turned around and saw that Luke was still in the middle of the maze, trying to decide which way to go.  So he was a good big cousin and ran back in to help Luke find the way... and he didn't even knock him down!

After the hay bale maze, we decided to head to the corn maze.  Jack ran up ahead with Dave while mom and I slowly made our way there with Sam and Luke.  We were so deep in conversation that we were completely surprised when Jack and Dave suddenly jumped out of some stalks of corn and shouted "Booooo!"  he thought it was hilarious that we were surprised, and we thought it was hilarious that he was hilarious, and I don't know if Luke realized exactly what was going on, but he was so thrilled to see his favorite big cousin after not seeing him for a whole 2 minutes!

When we reached the corn maze, we let Jack guide us to the center.  He and Dave had a great time exploring together (I have a lot of pictures of the back of those two from that day!), and it wasn't long before we made it to the middle!  Last year there was a flag to mark the middle of the maze... this year there were fruits and veggies, much to the boys' delight!

While we were in there, Jack decided to recreate the hilarity that his earlier surprise brought... and he caused even more hilarity!  He forgot that he was supposed to jump out from behind the stalk and instead jumped on the stalk, causing it to bend and Jack to fall!  It was so funny to see his surprise when he hit the ground, but it didn't take long for him to crack up at himself!

Then, we chugged our way back out of the maze...

Got a family photo taken...

And then piled into a wagon on the back of a tractor!

Once we got to the other side of the farm (via tractor), we had lots of fun looking at more pumpkins, looking at the display tractor and climbing on the display wagon.

And then, we hit the petting zoo!  Jack was so funny... in the past when we've gone in a petting zoo Jack had only been slightly interested in petting the animals.  This time, he chugged around that pen and tried to pet every single animal he could!  It was like he was thinking "This is a petting zoo and we are supposed to be petting and by God, I am going to pet those animals!"  I thought it was quite hilarious.  Luke pet a couple animals, but seemed to really be more interested in getting into the water dishes.  I even saw Dave petting animals (melt me!), which really surprised me!

(he wanted to get in the cage with the llama!)

Then, we had more fun with hay bale jumping!

Then we decided that it was time to head back to the main farm, and so we hopped back on the tractor...

Since Sam had been asleep the when we went through the corn maze, Dave decided to show Sam what stalks of corn look like...

... and then he had to leave.  The boys and I weren't ready to go quite yet, so we found some shade and ate our lunch!

As Sam had slept through pretty much the entire trip to the patch, I hadn't gotten the chance to take any photos of him with any pumpkins!  So we all hopped back on the tractor to go back to the other side of the farm.  When we got there Sam and I hopped off while grandma, Jack and Luke made the round trip... and I got pictures of my Sammy Wammy with the pumpkins!

Then we hopped back on the tractor and made our way back to the main part of the farm to meet with Jack, Luke and grandma and head home.  We had tired those boys out... all three of them slept on the way home! Even Jack!