Flesworthy Family Fun: Pumpkin Patch

This morning, my cousin Marcy and I took the babies to the pumpkin patch. I had been meaning to go all month, but kept being out of town, and I figured that today was our last shot since, hello, it’s Halloween TODAY.

We arrived and wondered down the hill, looking for pumpkins and farm animals. We stopped by a pond to look at a flock of bird creatures. Ducks? Geese? They were white birds and gray birds and they had orange feet and beaks. I don’t know. Anything outside my world of ducks = mallards and geese = Canadian geese throws me off. The babies played with a wagon full of little pumpkin-like gourds, watched some field-trip groups play in the big hay pile, and then we walked back up the hill to purchase our hayride tickets.

The ticket lady let us have some candy, so I picked out a roll of Smarties for Henry and Eleanor. As we walked over to the hayride pick-up station, the babies would pop their Smarties in their mouth and immediately start signing for “more! more!” They’re going to have fun with their trick-or-treat candy later on tonight, I can tell. I think they inherited Mommy's sweet tooth.

The tractor came by to pick us up, and, strangely, Henry seemed a little scared of the hay wagon at first. He started to cry a little and clung to Marcy as the hayride started. After a minute or two he came around, and the four of us rode out to the pumpkin patch, pointing out the birds and trees as we went.

We had a few minutes to look around the patch. Knowing that we’d have to carry two toddlers back to the car, we decided to forego the large pumpkin patch pumpkins in favor of the smaller gourd ones back at the greenhouse. But Henry and Eleanor still had fun walking through all the pumpkins. Eleanor said “pumpkin! pumpkin!” over and over and Henry liked to go up to the pumpkins and pat them.

Back to the wagon we went. Eleanor loved the hay on the return trip, and would lift up fistfuls of hay over her head. After the ride we went to the greenhouse and bought some gourds. They were the perfect size for Henry and Eleanor, who carried theirs around with them, still going “pumpkin! pumpkin!” They held their pumpkins all the way home.

On the car ride home, Marcy and I put some Snoop Dogg on the iPod, and taught Henry to say “laaaaaid back” along with the song “Gin & Juice.” Teaching my children gangsta rap will totally win me Mother of the Year, don’t you think? Hey, it’s tough out there on the German-luxury-car-filled streets of suburban Indianapolis; my kids will need to be prepared.

I can tell that holidays are going to get more and more fun as Henry and Eleanor get older. They’re starting to understand and enjoy things more, so I can’t wait to have more traditions like our annual pumpkin-patch visit. Hopefully their first time trick-or-treating tonight will be just as fun.


Henry was not too happy to be a scarecrow


Marcy, our cute l'il pumpkin


Eleanor: a-ma!
Mommy: no, sweetie, those are pumpkins, not apples.
Eleanor: a-ma!


perusing the pumpkins


yay! hay!