Girls Night Out

Let's see, first it was the pumpkin patch, then the birthday party, and after that - Girls Night Out. I left the boys at home and headed off to meet Jill for a frighteningly good time. :)

I have wanted to go to Pumpkin Hollow at Dewberry farms since I first found out about it. It's a short walk through a wooded area filled with scenic vignettes of carved pumpkins all lit up. While I didn't count, they claim that there are over 300 carved pumpkins. So we headed to the farm just before sunset. And boy were we shocked with what awaited us. Cars, and cars, and more cars. Unlike our previous trips to the farm the parking lot was completely packed. Apparently a feature on Good Morning America the day before had led to a giant uptick in farm traffic. Even with multiple ticket booths with multiple windows open there were still really long lines. Luckily we didn't have to wait terribly long to get our tickets and tokens. With them in hand we headed for the hayride line to the patch. When we were out a few weeks before the patch wasn't open, so we didn't get the opportunity to get out and look around. Even with dusk settling in I headed out to the farthest part of the patch to find some pumpkins still on the vine and few of my favorite pumpkin variety.

We then made the short walk from the patch down a dirt road past the corn (children of the corn anyone???).

We followed the road across the field to stand near the front of the line just outside of Pumpkin Hollow. Right next to a giant irrigation trough. Or mosquito breeding ground if you would like. After being eaten alive for a few minutes we were lucky enough to find some people a group or two back passing around the Off. It worked miraculously well. I feel sorry for whomever wasn't wearing it as the mosquitoes were definitely out in force and hungry or at least opportunistic. After quite a wait we were finally sent across the bridge into the Hollow. It was pitch black but well worth the wait.

I was really looking forward to getting some pictures, but my camera had other ideas. I must have accidentally hit some sort of setting on my camera because when I pushed the button the shutter would open, and stay open, and stay open some more. Anywhere from 3-5 seconds. So despite the lenses' image stabilization most of the pictures came out looking like this:

Don't ask me what those were supposed to be. My best guess is an own, corn, a cow, and I have no idea.... I did manage to get a few shots that didn't turn out too bad much to my surprise.

I will definitely be coming back in future years, and hopefully I will have better mastered my camera skills by then. :)

After the pumpkin stroll we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant and caught up. Despite it being past my bedtime I was sad to see the evening end. We will definitely have to do it again sometime soon.

Birthday Party at the Park

As if the pumpkin patch in the morning wasn't enough fun after naptime the boys went to their cousin Kendall's 4th birthday party at the park. Naptime ran a little long, so we were a little late, but we did get there in time to see her open a few presents.

Though I am not sure exactly how much present opening the boys saw as there was a whole enticing playground just a few feet away...

Ryan showed off his big boy stair climbing - holding onto the rails.

And having fun on the slide.


"Where's Ryan?? There he is!" He also had lots of fun playing peek-a-boo around the trashcan.

And of course checking out every single thing to play with like the spinning knob.

Before finally making his way to his favorite - the swings. Holding on tight, and swinging like a big-boy in a REAL swing. :)

Connor had a great time, too.

Sliding down the slide.

"Who me??" Trying to act coy after being caught red handed trying to climb the rock wall.

Just like this...

Connor had no intention of missing out on the opportunity to try out the big boy swings either.

It was a really beautiful park. We had driven though once before, long before the boys were born, and I remembered it being pretty and wooded, but I didn't remember it having quite so much play equipment. We will definitely have to come back again someday if we are ever on that side of town. The weather couldn't have been nicer either.

At the Pumpkin Patch

We tooks the boys to the pumpkin patch near our house Saturday morning. The boys have been pointing out all the pumpkins that seem to be multiplying at their school for weeks. I am guessing they must be reading lots of books with pumpkins in them. :) So we thought they would have fun seeing all the pumpkins at the patch. They were thrilled. They were even more excited about getting to ride in the wagon, and getting to pick out and take home a few little pumpkins, too.

Little Farmers

With the recent "cold snap" I started looking through the boys clothes for long sleeves and pants when I stumbled across some overalls. Aren't they cute??

Kingwood Car Show

Sunday afternoon we went to the annual Kingwood Car Show.

There were old cars.

There were sports cars.

There were even Smart cars!

But no doubt about it there were no cuter cars than these -

There were none more functional.

There were none more compact.

There were none more photographed.

There were none more admired.

It was actually kinda funny the number of people who asked if they could take the boys' photos, and the number of people who came up and asked where we found their cars.

Little Helpers

Speaking of Halloween decorations - our pumpkins have been out for a couple of weeks, but we finally got around to getting our blow out up this weekend. The boys helped Kevin put it up.

Connor supervised the attachment of the tie downs.

Then he helped Kevin get it screwed into the ground.

Ryan helped keep the tension on the line while Kevin worked on screwing in the tie downs on the other side.

Warning: Completely inappropriate humor

We took the boys for a walk around the neighborhood in their cars on Sunday morning. Lots of folks in our neighborhood have been busy putting up Halloween decorations over the last few weeks so we were enjoying checking out all the decorations. Kevin of course, zeroed in a skeleton lying on the ground under a tree.

Kevin: "Look at the skeleton!"

Me: "Aww... Looks like it fell out of the tree."

Kevin: "It looks way cooler like that."

Kevin: "Hey - isn't that the house where the guy died?"

Me: "Oh, yeah. It is."

Me: "That's kinda morbid."

Kevin: "That's cool."

On the Farm

A few weeks ago we visited Dewberry Farm on their opening weekend. The boys had a blast.

We started our tour of the farm off with a stop by Little Farmersville. Ryan wanted to drive the tractor. And Connor took the horse swing out for a little ride.

They both tried out the sandbox and the pvc pipe slide. Kevin even took Connor for a quick spin around the path on a tricycle. And before we could go on they both had to try out the big boys swings.

From there we ventured over for our official height check.

Afterwards we sat down to enjoy a little shade, a snack, and the singing chicken show.

Refreshed and ready to see what other wonders the farm held we headed towards the pond to say hello to the ducks and geese, and do a little rubber duckie racing the old fashioned way - with hand crank water pumps.

Then we wandered over to the big red barn to gawk at the chickens, roosters, goats, chicks, rabbits, and horses. The rooster was rather accommodating and serenaded us with "Cock-a-doodle-do's" frequently much to the delight of the boys - especially Ryan who would point and say "do-do!" excitedly. They weren't quite sure what to think of the baby goats whose pen was next door to the chickens.

We will never know if they would have worked up the courage to pet the goats as the baby chicks soon caught and held their attention for quite some time.

We did finally convince them to move on and say hello to the horses, and even take a peek at the bunnies.

We left the barn just in time to pet to the pig statue, take him for a short ride, and then watch the pig races.

The race was even more "exciting" than intended as Ryan darted out of sight in the crowd and Kevin lost him for a minute or two before we found him under the duck racing table rescuing a lost rubber duckie. After that I decided it would be a good idea to strap both of the boys into their unescapable 5-point harnesses in the stroller and never ever let them out again. Or at least not for a very long time. Sometime after they turn 18 maybe? So with them securely strapped in we wandered over to check out the corn maze. The first time or two in we only made it a short ways before going in circles and ending up coming out the same way we came in. We did eventually find our way into the heart of the maze and make a stop by the bridge.

The boys took a nice nap while Kevin and I took turns pushing the stroller through muddy patches and over the trenches. By the time we got out the boys had enjoyed a nice nap and Kevin and I were exhausted from pushing the stroller through the mud. :) So while we "rested" we let the boys climb the mountain of hay and watch other kids swinging off the top like little Tarzans. The boys finally spied the huge slides so off we went to check them out.

Up and down they went just as fast as they could slide, and as fast as we could carry them back up to the top. Hoping for a break from all those stairs we went to check out Fort Dewhickey where they crawled through the long tunnel and eventually made their way up the ramp to the upper platform to the biggest slide. It was super slick. They shot down it and whooshed off onto the ground and were ready to do it all over again.

As it was getting late we instead headed over to catch a hay ride to the pumpkin patch. Only the patch wasn't open so we sat back and enjoyed the ride past the patch, by the Christmas trees, around the maze, down beside the water looking for turtles, past Pumpkin Hollow to return to where we started. They did however have a collection of pumpkins nearby.

The boys were more interested in checking out the pumpkins than posing for any pictures. And before long they spotted a sign with animals and had to go over and point them out telling us what each of the animals were and what sound they made.

While I think the boys could have continued on for a few more hours, after 6 hours at the farm Kevin and I were pretty tuckered out. So we loaded up the boys, and the muddy stroller and headed towards home. Everyone but me was fast asleep in no time at all.