the pumpkin patch

ok, so i know i said i was going to catch up the last month’s adventures but i wanted to post this before it gets to be thanksgiving and i’m still catching up on halloween.  so i’m cutting in line.  

phil had a three-day weekend (you rock, mr. columbus!) and we got some good ol’ family fun time in.  we visited a pumpkin patch on saturday because i wanted a real, authentic, farm experience rather than going to a pumpkin LOT or worse, just buying them from the market.  where are the pictures in THAT, i ask you?!  (warning (yet again):  there are a LOT of pics in this entry– hmm, maybe if i didn’t post so many pictures, maybe i’d be faster at catching up!)

so we got the kids all ready and excited about pumpkin picking… and this isthe best picture i could get of the three of ’em together.

because they were too busy making a pumpkin snowman. at least we’re seeing teamwork here, right?

i had assumed mikey would want as big a pumpkin as he could get and”guided” him towards the pretty, round ones. and told him to use hismuscles to pick it up…

when all he really wanted was the littlest, baby pumpkin he could find.

this girl couldn’t decide which one she wanted at first. so she tried out two little ones…

then went for the big kahuna.

“i think i can, i think i can…”

changing her approach…

the face of determination.

success! (this is when i had to put down the camera in order to rushover to her and help put the pumpkin back down because she was justabout to topple backwards).

my scruffy little baby pumpkin wanted to check out what all the fuss was about too.

she’s scruffy because she’s ALWAYS pulling the hairpins and piggy tailsout. i soon gave up and let her hair fall where it wanted (like in hereyes).

she soon got parked back into the stroller after i found her digging inthe dirt and sampling some dead leaves. but she was happy as long asshe had a pumpkin to hold.

allie decided mikey knows best and settled for a baby pumpkin, too.

which she dropped and followed it as it bump, bump, bumped down the hill.

then her daddy found an even cuter, babier pumpkin just for her. she promptly fell in love with it.

my ham- er, husband- straining under the weight of this impressive specimen.

there is no gift shop on earth that phil will not want to stop in andbrowse. including ones found on a pumpkin farm. well, at least it wasshaded. and here we found EVEN BABIER pumpkins for the kiddos. so itturns out that we didn’t even need to visit the pumpkin patch at alland could’ve saved ourselves a bunch of time and trouble by just goingto the store and buying pumpkins. but that’s not the point, right?

winding down our visit to the farm, phil found three pumpkins on sale and loaded ’em up in the wheelbarrow.

this little one thought the wheelbarrow ride was the BEST THING EVER.until the whole thing toppled over in the midst of unloading the kidsand lauren did a face-plant into the dirt and bit the inside of herlip. 🙁

took a $20 tractor ride to the other part of the farm. here’s alliedoing what she thinks is a whistle– she curls her fingers around hermouth and makes a high-pitched hoo-a-hoot! sound. she cracks us up.

daddy and lauren bringing up the rear. (she’s holding the wipe that daddy used to clean up her lip.)

it was a perfect day for shave ice. to cool all of us down, and to ice lauren’s lip according to dr. phil.

the kids always choose rainbow flavor which always never tastes very good.

but they love it!

while daddy and lauren (and i!) shared a watermelon shave ice.

daddy snuck in a few bites while she wasn’t looking.

then it was time to get back on the tractor wagon for the ride back to our car.

mikey and allie checking out the apple trees.

we passed by this pumpkin cannon on the way back and got to witness thewonder of a pumpkin being shot out of it. but darn that i wasn’t readyfor that moment with the camera!

that was mikey’s favorite part of the day.

this little rascal insisted on standing up for the ride.

thinking that she’s totally a big girl now and completely unaware that her daddy has a firm grip on her pants.

not sure what the pouty lip here was about.

checking out the vegetable fields on the farm.

makin’ faces.

striking resemblance, no?

and this is about how i felt when all was said and done. heh heh…

we didn’t even get out of the parking lot before she was passed out. poor baby…