Too Many Pumpkins to Count

I can't tell you how excited I am that Fall has arrived.  It may not feel like Fall around here with this heat wave we are experiencing, but it's definitely that time of year.  The stores already have tons of Halloween candy out and pumpkin ingredients are every where you turn.  My mom was great when it came to decorating our house for the Fall season that I remember as a kid how fun our house looked.  I really want my kids to experience that so I try and make sure our home is full with lots of decor during this time of the year.  Skylar and I were really excited about decorating the house for Halloween that we couldn't wait for October to arrive and did it the last week of September.

Here are just a few pictures from the house.

My very own DIY witch legs.

Needing pumpkins to finish off decorating the house we planned a early trip out to Bates Nut Farm this year.  We went on the second day of their opening for the season which had is pros and cons.  Pros it was completely empty, cons some of there signature items weren't out, but we still had a good time.  Not wanting to miss out on watching the kids pick out pumpkins my parents and Uncle Chris joined us again.  The trip started off a bit rough.  Madden was a complete mess for the first 15 minutes for no apparent reason.  Screaming, crying and refusing to walk anywhere on his own.  

Once we got Madden to calm down we took the kids over to feed the goats.  Last year I remember the kids were a little scared to feed the goats but they got over it and feed them tons of food.  This year the kids flat out refused to even get near to the animals.  They would only touch the food and put it into our hands to feed the animals.  Bummed me out that they wouldn't feed them because they really liked it last year.

Skylar got her traditional pony ride in on Sassy.  We bought a ticket for Madden in hopes he would ride but he didn't even come close and lords know I didn't want to push him and cause another meldown, so Skylar was able to ride around double the time, which she loved.

This year the corn maze was the big hit.  Skylar loved leading us through it and stopping at the mailboxes that were placed throughout the maze.  Madden, of course made a huge mess with the stamps and ink that were placed in each mailbox.  Skylar loved the corn maze so much she made us run through it twice.

After the corn maze the kids found some sprinklers that were running, which were just what they needed to cool down in the near 100 degree temperatures that we had that day.

Madden was very excited to see the tractor ride. The ride was pretty uneventful, but he loved every moment of it.  He is very much into trains right now and I think he felt as if he was riding on one.

After the tractor ride the heat was getting pretty intense that we figured we better start our pumpkin picking and head out.  Madden is very much in the no picture phase as you can see below.

Madden  - "No cheese me!"

Bates, in my opinion has the best pumpkins around.  It's the reason why I make the trip out to Valley Center each year.  I just love how all their pumpkins look.  The sizes, the shapes, the colors of all the pumpkins is just perfect that when I'm there I just can't help myself.  Before we left Jake had a bet that I would come home with over 18 pumpkins which I thought was crazy...no way I would get that many.  Well, I forgot how much the kids (and I) love picking pumpkins.  While I'm trying to pick the perfect craving pumpkins, the perfect decor pumpkins, and the perfect tiny pumpkins and take pictures at the same time, the kids were throwing pumpkin after pumpkin into our wheelbarrows, anything that they could carry.  I know at one point I looked back and in the wheelbarrow and we had four crookneck squashes courtesy of Madden.  Needless to say, Jake won the bet!

Three wheelbarrows full of pumpkins and we were done.  We stop by the local store on the farm and let the kids pick out some candy and called it a day.  It was another successful pumpkin picking trip to Bates and now our home feels ready for Fall (now lets just get some cooler weather).