Meanwhile, Back at the Farm...

It's that time of year again. My favorite time of year- FALL. Time for our trip out to the farm for the pumpkin experience.

Try getting these two to look the same direction at the same time and you will understand why light was the least of my worries at the moment...

Curly loves animals. She was feeling pretty brave to get this close to the goat, and I think for good reason. Not long after the photo, Mr. goat came out of that hole pretty far... could scare the pants right off Miss Curly and nearly did.

They got to climb through a long tunnel (read large pipe) suspended in the air. It was fun for both of them, though Curly was too fast to get many photos of. Smiles LOVED the tunnel!






Then...well, then I think I forgot my brain over with that tunnel and got into a cow train with Smiles since he was too small to ride in it himself. It was a bit tight.

And then...


it started raining (actually down-pouring in wonderful Northwest style) on our way back.

I don't think you can actually tell from the pictures the severity of the rain, but I tell you it was some hard rain. My lap looked like I had stepped straight out of a pool when I got out. That's WITH Smiles sitting on it! All that said it was one of the most fun things I have done with Smiles and we both couldn't stop laughing. Curly was laughing right along with us in the car in front of us.

So...we needed something dry for a little while after that. Off to the "corn room" it was. They have a very fun room at Maris Farms that is filled with corn kernels. There are rubber ducks hiding in it so the little ones can search for them. Quite fun if you ask Curly, and Smiles was pretty interested this year too.

As you can see, the corn was good at soaking in the wet from our clothes with it's dry coating of dust. It actually worked quite well.

Smiles found a duck. That was fun and looked so tasty too.

WHAT!?! Sister stole his duck!!! That mean sister...she had to give it back. Can't have a fun day without a little issue between siblings, right?

He is quick to forgive her. You know that sunshine comes out of her...well, nevermind...he got his duck back.

(You can see where Smiles had a coat to protect him and where he didn't with the rain soaked pants.)

Now for little brother's revenge. He got to bury her in corn!

(She really looks scared, doesn't she...)

Mom helped Smiles finish the job.

Yep. Totally frightened out of her mind...I'm sure of it Smiles.

She asked to be painted with a pig, so that's what she got.

Then Smiles got to drive her on a tractor (don't worry, it doesn't really move).

He loved that. He never gets to lead.

I think we need to teach them about looking AT the camera for these shots...hmmm...

And then came the pumpkin picking. We adopted a rule from a mentor mom (who happens to be a good friend's mother) my first year of MOPS. Her rule was that the kids could get whatever pumpkin they wanted, but they had to be able to carry it to the car all by themselves. Love that rule. Except this year...

Maris kind of failed us. Their pumpkins were way too HUGE. We looked and looked, and they have tons of pumpkins, but we couldn't find one that she could pick up.

Luckily she was content to get the kind Smiles gets. The small ones. She got a small pumpkin and a gourd since she could carry both of them.

We weren't going to carve this year anyway, so it worked out just fine.

Curly with her pumpkin, and Smiles with his.

Happy Harvest friends!

If you would like to see last year's trip to Maris, click here.