Fall In One

This past weekend was our first in ages where we didn’t have a million different commitments. Instead of taking it easy and recharging like smart people, we decided to cram a month’s worth of fall activities into one weekend.

We started at the local carnival held at the nearby church. We hadn’t gone to this in a couple years, since right after I found out I was pregnant with James. In fact, I’m pretty sure going on the spinning strawberry ride with Annabel jump-started my hyperemesis. Okay not really, but that was a really poor decision. This year I went on the spinning ride with no problems. In fact, I got to sit back and relax while Annie did all the work (kids rule!).

In previous years she’s been afraid to go on any of the other rides, but this time she wanted to go on all of them, including the crazy spin-you-high-off-the-ground rides. Mike started hyperventilating at the mere thought, but I reminded him she isn’t tall enough for anything risky. He quickly bribed her with cotton candy bigger than her head, just in case.

We also spent a ton of money on games that earned us enough prize tickets to trade in for several blinking light-up rings. Don’t be jealous.

On Sunday we went to the same pumpkin farm I’ve been to approximately 187 times this year. I love the place, though – it’s full of pumpkins! The parking lot was absolutely jammed with cars, but once we were on the grounds of the farm it didn’t seem crowded at all. We all piled onto a tractor-pulled wagon for a tour around the grounds.

I was reminded how beautiful the farm was as we rolled down our sunflower-flanked path.

After we got off the wagon, Annie was itching to go to the pig races, so off we went. When the race announcers started looking for kids to wave the section flags, Annie jumped to her feet and was selected almost immediately. I snapped a picture of her this year, and it looked a lot like the picture I got of her waving her flag last year, too.

Stoooooop groooooowing.

Like last year, she received a pig nose for her participation.

Then, finally, it was time for my favorite part – picking pumpkins. Up until this point, James had been strapped into our red wagon, but when we reached the wide-open pumpkin field, we let him loose. Well, as loose as he could get with Annie constantly trying to hold his hand.

Annie picked the pumpkins while James ate hay and climbed tractors.

I also asked them to stand together for a picture and they were both like, “Thanks for making us stare into the sun, lady!”

We now have…many pumpkins. I’m thinking we can just decorate them with all of Annie’s blinking light-up rings and call it a night (I hate those blinking light-up rings).