Welcome, Fall!

This past weekend our family celebrated fall with a visit to the pumpkin patch. The weather was predicted to be so beautiful (sunny and high 60s), and we figured it wouldn't be too busy this early in the month. It was a wonderful morning!

Jaden and Cody were too short to pose inside these animal heads, but the pics still turned out pretty cute! :)

We started our morning with some playtime in the corn box. What a great idea this farm had to include dump trucks and bulldozers with the corn. Cody and Jaden probably could've spent the whole day here!

Next, we got to ride behind a tractor. The seats filled up quickly, so we were happy that we got a turn to ride all together as a family.

Then, it was on to the slides. This slide was enormous... and FAST! We were shocked that Jaden was brave enough to slide down on his own. He loved it!

Cody seemed a bit nervous on his first slide down, so from then on, he was happy to be slide-partners with Daddy.

The second slide was a bit bumpy for both boys, but they loved this one, too.

After the slides, we picked out a spot on the hay bale "bleachers" to watch some pig races!

I can't remember who was winning here-- Eenie or Meanie.

Jaden and Cody didn't last long on the hay bales. They had to get an up-close view.

When the races were done, we got to walk around and pet some of the farm animals.

Jaden was definitely our all-around brave kid of the day. He just giggled when this horse tried to lick his fingers.

He couldn't figure out why the horse didn't want to eat his rock treat.

We also enjoyed seeing some sheep...

...and the famous racing pigs.

Other farm highlights included going inside a tee-pee,

riding on the swings (though this activity didn't hold their interest long at all!),

climbing on a large spider web (notice the people building with life-size Lincoln logs in the background... maybe next year we'll try this out!),

and climbing up haystacks.

Since Cody and Jaden were a bit too young to appreciate the real corn maze, we tried out this "cage maze" instead.

What a fun place for the boys to run around!

At the end of our visit, we decided to take home a few souvenirs. We walked through two different pumpkin patches to pick out our favorite family pumpkins.

We told Jaden and Cody that they could pick any pumpkin they wanted, and both ended up with these funny-looking yellow gourds!

This wagon helped us carry the pumpkins to our car. (The boys weren't big fans of the bumpy ride.)

What an enjoyable family day at the farm! We'll definitely re-visit this spot next year. Happy Fall to our family and friends!