Pumpkin Patch Pictures

We made it to two pumpkin patches this year. The first was at the farm we buy our goat's milk and meat from. We hit this one on Saturday on the way home from Kylie's soccer game. Eva and Rob fell asleep in the car on the way there (Rob wasn't feeling quite up to par that weekend - he was fighting off a cold), so they stayed in the car with the windows down and slept. Fortunately, it was a gorgeous day and wasn't too hot.

The older four kids and I picked out pumpkins - four small ones for the kids to paint and one huge one to carve with Rob. We also picked up a tiny one for Eva as when we came home a few weeks ago with tiny pumpkins for each of the older kids, Eva was quite upset that she didn't get one as well.

After picking out our pumpkins, the five of us went on a hayride. We got to see the adult goats, the baby goats, the horses, and the pigs.


Every Monday we drive past the big pumpkin patch on our way to Beth's ballet class. The kids excitedly watched as it slowly got set up through September and were thrilled when it finally opened. We hadn't been able to visit it yet though. Realizing that Halloween is next Monday, we checked our schedule and Monday evening was the only possible time we could fit it in. Rob left work a bit early, picked up pizzas, and met up with us. We ate dinner in the car and headed off to the pumpkin patch.

It rained the night before, so we thought it was going to be pretty muddy, so the kids wore their rainboots. It turned out to be completely dry, but not nearly as dusty as usual :) We explored the teepee . . .


Made our way through the hay maze . . .




And joined up with some friends from church on the hayride . . .


We took lots of pictures with the various characters that inhabit the pumpkin patch.

Jack became a ghost . . .



Meg a flower . . .


And Beth stood on her tiptoes to be a purple flower . . .

All four of the older kids posed with the Toy Story bunch . . .


Then we took a break and got snocones. Only in Texas would snocones be appropriate at a pumpkin patch! Megan and Kylie picked pink bubblegum, Beth chose root beer, Jack wanted banana and Eva, Rob and I split a pina colada flavored snocone. Up to this point, Eva had been sound asleep, happily cuddled against me in our wrap. She woke up for the snocones though!

We had to take Jack's picture on the red tractor. He loves that tractor! (Of course, he loves every tractor :) )


As this was Eva's first visit to the pumpkin patch (last year I was on bedrest, so Brittney and Rob took the kids), we had to take her picture in the "my first pumpkin patch" pot. Eva loved it!


Even though we didn't get a great "nice" photo of all five, we still took a funny picture . . .


Our little pumpkin on her own . . .


We wrapped up our visit by playing on the wooden vehicles . . .


I caught a photo of Rob and Eva hanging out waiting for the other kids to finish up :)


As we were leaving, Beth spotted Dora, Boots and Diego and HAD to take a picture with them . . .


It was a wonderful family night and we were so glad we worked it into our schedule this year! We missed the TX State Fair due to kidney stones, but that's ok :) We'll hit it next year.

My surgery is still on for this Friday. I've been overwhelmed by the support of our friends through this! We've had four people offer to bring dinner over on Friday night and one of our friends is bringing dinner on Sunday (Saturday night is our church's trunk-or-treat and chili cook-off - don't know if I'll make it to that, but I'll try to at least make it to the trunk-or-treat). Rob has concert tickets for Friday night. One of his favorite bands had a concert in Dallas last month that got rained out and rescheduled for this Friday. When we found out when I was going in for my procedure, he immediately responded by saying he'd just see this band the next time they come, but I wanted to get him there if I could. Jo-Jo and Allison came to the rescue :) Jo-Jo is bringing us dinner on Friday and will hang out with the kids and I for a couple of hours until Allison gets here. She's coming up for the weekend anyway and was happy to offer to stay with us that night :) We are so incredibly lucky to have the wonderful friends we have! I don't know what I'd do without you guys :)

We also have another friend (Betsy) who's taking the kids for the day so Rob can be with me, although we're bringing Eva with us. She's currently going through a stage where she is not interested in being with anyone other than Rob or I. Ever. She is very vocal about her displeasure if anyone else tries to hold her, to the point that she practically turns purple because she's screaming so loudly. My procedure is supposed to be very simple and is only supposed to take an hour, (although I have to be there an hour early and I'm sure I'll be in recovery for a while as they're using general anesthesia), so Eva can hang out with Rob.

I'm trying not to be nervous about everything, but of course I am a bit. I'm mostly nervous about the stent hurting as I found a bazillion horror stories about them on the Internet (definitely a mixed blessing to have that much information readily available!), but either way, it will be over in three weeks! I certainly didn't expect this issue to last for nine weeks and we are very glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

One last photo for tonight - Eva happily entertained herself for quite a while tonight before going to bed. She collected a pile of random stuff and made her self a bit of a nest on the floor next to me. One of her favorite things was an almost empty roll of toilet paper which she happily shredded. I think she's part hamster :) She also learned to open and close drawers tonight and spent several minutes opening and closing a drawer to my nightstand. It made us laugh, so we caught a minute or two of that on video, but I haven't uploaded it to the computer yet.