Pumpkin Patch

Oh how we love October and Halloween around here.  On Saturday we went to the Spina Farms Pumpkin patch to get some pumpkin décor for our home.  We had fun admiring all the different types of pumpkins at this pumpkin patch and looking for just the right ones to put in the wheelbarrow. 

 

For a solid week leading up to our visit to the pumpkin patch, Clara would tell me daily about how she was going to ride a pony and how she was going to like it so much.  I'm not sure how she got that idea because we've shown her the pictures from last year where she cried the entire ride, but she was adamant about riding the pony.  Even when we pulled into the parking lot and she saw the pony she was all enthusiastic about her upcoming equestrian excursion.  I think she really buys into the power of positive thinking.  But sure enough, she got clingy waiting in line and fake-cried through at least part of her ride and afterwards said firmly "mine not like to ride pony".  At least she was sort of brave about it.  Here is her face right at the start of her little loop.  That bottom lip is crumpled up like she is trying to hold herself together for the ordeal ahead.

This picture is more than halfway through and you can see she was still looking worried but had pulled herself together enough to just get through it.

Annnnddd, here come the waterworks of relief that the ordeal was over.  It is sad, but funny, and for reals, I just love, love, love her.  As soon as the pony (his name was Poncho) stopped she wrapped her arms around my neck as I pulled her off the saddle, then she sniffled and said "bye-bye pony" and told the saintly man who leads crying children around the same dusty lap all day long "thank you".

Once the pony ride was out of the way, it was time to get serious about selecting pumpkins.  Clara was really interested in these gray pumpkins, which were super fascinating.  She kept trying to heft them up herself.

It worked better when daddy helped. 

She decorated some of the white pumpkins with fistfuls of hay she scooped from the ground.

And Clara and Paul made a pumpkin snowman.

I always go for the tall, strangely shaped pumpkins.  They're my favorite.  It came down to these two and I chose the one of the left for its slight curviness.

We would have walked away with tons of pumpkins if we had kept all the ones that Clara kept putting in the cart.  She particularly liked these variegated bulbous ones.

One reason we really enjoy the Spina Farms pumpkin patch is that it doesn't have any of the bounce houses that are at most of the pumpkin patches that spring up in empty parking lots near us.  Instead they have old-fashioned attractions like hay rides, giant orange Adirondacks, miniature hay maze and gigantic jack-o-lanterns to play in. 

This is the second year in a row that Paul's parents have been able to go pick pumpkins with us, which is an awesome little tradition that is happening.  Clara certainly loves it.

Clara and I did the hay maze together this year and she was actually pretty good about it although I don't know that she entirely grasped the point.

 

And at the end, she found a round little pumpkin, perfectly sized for her to take home with us.