10.26.19 - Pumpkin Patch Day!

This weekend was full of Halloween festivities: Saturday was the Pumpkin Farm followed by painting/carving pumpkins and eating pumpkin seeds. Today I went to the Witches' Tea with Erin and then Jack and I took the kids to Trunk or Treat at Arden Church of Nazarene. I tried to take a lot of pictures and videos, but here are the points I want to remember (some of which we didn't capture):

Pumpkin patch (10/26):
Saturday morning Clara woke up grumpy (possibly because she woke up alone--Calvin and Jane were already in the living room wit me). She joined us with a scrunched up face and when I said "Today is the day we go to the pumpkin patch!" she responded "NO! I don't WANT to go to the pumpkin patch!" Of course later she warmed to the idea. Just a rough start for a little girl.

Jane chose three other previous Halloween-based shirts before we settled on the Nightmare Before Christmas one. I was pretty happy she wanted to wear the "princess skirt" (the gray tulle skirt that had come with Clara's elephant costume) all day. It was adorable. I originally was going to wear my Jack-o-Lantern shirt, but it was a bit too small and definitely too warm. However for the brief time I had it on, it inspired Clara and she too wanted a pumpkin shirt. I tried the black Jack-o-Lantern shirt (which is only 3T) and it just barely fit her. She's had it since 2016.

Henry arrived right on time, of course, but we still had to get the kids ready. We got to the pumpkin patch maybe 10 minutes late, which I am pretty sure is less late than years past so progress.

Unfortunately I'm too tired to write out all the details, but the kids loved basically everything. Clara saw the bouncy castle from the entrance and couldn't wait to get there, but we had arrived just after the place opened and there were literally no other kiddos using the bouncy castle yet. Clara got inside but sat very still and said she couldn't do it. Jane wouldn't even go inside in the first place, but just wanted to watch Clara closely from the safety of the outside. Fortunately the kid who had punched their tickets said they could just come back later when there were more kids to model the behavior for them. In fact staff told us more than once that because we were there so early when it's not busy, we can try some of the attractions more than once or longer than is typical.

I was worried we'd wasted our money buying kids passes for each of the girls (events are $3/person piecemeal but you can save a little money if you get the passes to cover a bunch of events--assuming your kids actually participate in each event). However once Beth, Jake, and Hunter arrived, Hunter also couldn't wait to go in the bouncy castle and he got Clara to join too. At this point there were only 2-3 other kids so it was not at all crowded or too intimidating. Clara watched Hunter closely and soon was bouncing around herself, and he even got her to go down the bouncy castle slide. One of my favorite things about this entire day was watching what good buds Hunter and Clara are. <3

Jane saw Clara enjoying herself and eventually decided it was probably safe for her too. She went inside and even though she never actually stood up or tried to bounce at all, she seemed to love the feeling of everyone bouncing around her because she was not a quiet girl: loud squeals of sheer delight over and over.

Normally one ticket is supposed to be 6 minutes in the bouncy castle, but because there were so few people around he let us stay indefinitely, so the girls enjoyed it at least 15 maybe 20 or more minutes.

When we took both the train ride and the hay ride, Henry ran ahead to get a bunch of pictures of us approaching. The kids would get excited to see him and wave at him. We joked that he's even faster than a train because he could easily run alongside it. When the train circled back and we were disembarking, Clara darted off back toward the bouncy castle and Henry was quick enough to catch her before she got too far away from the group. So helpful having him around.

--This is as far as I got recording everything when it actually happened, and now it's a month later so I'll write what I can remember.--

Erin, Jake, and I took the kids (except Calvin) on a hay ride and they loved it. It was slightly longer and a slightly different route than the train ride, and it included an intercom recording explaining a lot of the weird and creepy statues around the pumpkin patch and what they were supposed to be.

When we finished we went over to the actual collections of pumpkins. Henry grabbed a wagon and I told the girls we could pick one large pumpkin (to carve) and two small ones (to paint). But they basically just kept choosing pumpkins and adding them to the wagon as I kept removing the extra ones. That lasted a while, then I let them actually get in the wagon (with the pumpkins we settled on) and I pulled the wagon while Jack pushed the stroller and we all caravanned to the corn maze. I pulled them through that for awhile. I think around there is when Jake, Hunter, and Beth joined us. Hunter also got in the wagon to be pulled around the corn maze.

After not too long we emerged in a playground made largely of haystacks but also with a few slides and tunnels and things. The kids loved it. There was even a small house made of hay stacks and corn stalks that they kept running through - it was just right for their height. There were also some fenced in chickens they were checking out.

By now we had actually been at the patch for over two hours, a record, and I was getting tired and figured Jane would need a nap soon.  So we went and bought our pumpkins (plus a mini pumpkin for baby Calvin) and got our now traditional family photos in front of the Pumpkin Farm sign. Then we drove home and, amazingly, the girls didn't fall asleep.

When we got home I tried to get Jane to take a nap but she was genuinely too wound up. She didn't throw a fit or anything, she just hung out in her room awake and after 20 minutes I let her come back out. Jack scooped the large pumpkin and then found a pumpkin seed recipe involving olive oil and Parmesan that was excellent. Meanwhile we set the girls up to paint their pumpkins but Jane actually only wanted to color hers with crayons. It really didn't work at all but she seemed happy with it and it was a lot less messy than paint, so okay. Clara did paint her pumpkin a bunch of different colors and it turned out really well, like a tye dye pumpkin.

I carved the larger pumpkin Jack had scooped, and the girls were pretty interested in watching me. When I was done we went ahead and lit a real candle so they could check it out, and Henry helped teach Clara how to blow the candle out. She was very excited.

We spent the rest of the evening just hanging out. Henry went to get Costco pizza for us and frozen gluten free pizza for the girls, but Costco was so packed we had already put the girls to bed before he returned. (After we kissed them good night, they told us "Happy Halloween!" So adorable.) We still enjoyed pizza and visits with him before he had to leave.