The Pumpkin Patch

Those pumpkins in the background totally look cloned, but they're not. There were a gazillion little tiny kid sized pumpkins at this pumpkin farm. I think they're specifically for all the field trip kids. Annaliese was not really into looking at the pumpkins, but more into checking out the farm in general. She was interested long enough for me to get a photo that looks like she's interested. She really couldn't care less about picking one out. She basically walked a few feet picked up a pumpkin, then put it down, to walk a few more feet and pick up a different pumpkin.. only to repeat the process about 10 more times. The she realized, "Who cares! Let's get shaved ice."


Not really making any kind of decision.


And this one cared even less than the other one.


This would be the highlight for me, and I'm dragging the kids back again next week, just so I can get me another shaved ice.


They could have hung out with the goats all day. You can pay money to feed the sheep OR when you run out of quarters you can do as Annaliese and pick up all the spilled food under the "goat feed" machines and at the base of the fences and feed them with that. Liked the goats, the sheep were too pushy.


Never let the happy pictures fool you. This is generally how our family activities go. Annaliese set this one up. She forced Maddie to be a member of the Sunny Bunch and Maddie felt this was beneath her.


None of us had ever done a corn maze before so we thought we'd give it a whirl. My friend has done these and you can spend hours in there.....


We let Annaliese lead...


...and somehow made it out in 9 minutes. (I'm not questioning her methods.)


Annaliese is team Jacob. Who knew? I would have said Edward all the way.


And this.... This is the great shot of the girls Jonathan gets to load into his iphone....


And this is the lovely shot of me and the girls I get to complain about on the internet.

Am I the only one that plans out the outfits in my head before we go on a family outing where photos will be taken? The thought process for this trip was, "The pumpkins are orange, I need a color to pop them out...hmm..blue. But then I need a color to pop against a dark background color if they're by a barn...pink skirts? And what can I wear to blend with them in case I get a cute shot with them that I'll want to frame." (hahaha fat chance of that. Always dreaming.)

Monkey Business

The girls spent the night and sleeping arrangements became a lot like that brain teaser where you have to get a wolf and a goat and a cabbage across the river, but you can only take one at a time. If you leave the wolf with the goat, it will eat the goat. If you leave the goat with the cabbage, it will eat the cabbage. So how do you get them all across the river on this wolf, goat, cabbage journey that you're on?

That was exactly like bedtime. This was my brain teaser tonight.
You have a set of bunk beds, three cousins and a stuffed monkey, no more than two kids (and one monkey) can sleep in each bed.
Elyse will only sleep with her monkey and Faith.
Faith would like to sleep alone, but will sleep with Elyse.
Annaliese wants to sleep with Elyse's Monkey and Faith.

It was a little nutty. Tears over the monkey. LOT'S of tears over Elyse's Monkey. But I had to tell Annaliese, that everybody knows that a smart monkey doesn't monkey with another monkey's monkey. So she gave it back, climbed out of bed, opened a toy box and low and behold pulled out her own monkey. So young and learning valuable life lessons.

(By the way Elyse was REALLY impressed with how well Annaliese could read. She could hear her from the top bunk.)