Pumpkin Picking

We went in search of the perfect pumpkins today. We found them and lots of fun. Really it doesn’t take much; my kids can have fun in a mud puddle. We went to Frerichs Farm in Warren. We were going to go yesterday, but realized it was Pumpkinpalooza (the day they were weighing all the pumpkins, looking for the biggest) and I did not want to be in a crowd. That’s one reason I like Frerichs Farm so much, it never seems crowded.

The first thing on the agenda was to pick out and paint the pumpkins. So many to choose from, this could take a long time. 

They were surprisingly decisive.

We did this first so they have time to dry and not get the car covered in paint. (This year, "Past Heather" was kind to "Future Heather", she brought a bin to put them in so even if they didn’t dry they still wouldn’t get the car covered in paint.) The kids not getting covered in paint is a completely different story (touchy subject…I don’t want to talk about it). 

Next it’s onto making a scarecrow. Since Teddy has an abundance of clothes that no longer fit, we used his (he outgrew them while we stood there so we took them off of him right there…kidding). 

 Maizie was not thrilled with the hands on hay experience, so she decided to supervise. 

As we were putting him together we were trying to come up with a name. Since just about every conversation comes around to Spongebob, our scarecrow’s name is Gary.

After those were done, it was off to roam the farm. There are a bunch of areas where you can play and take pictures. As soon as we pulled up they wanted their picture in front of the measuring pumpkin.

There is a section where you can look for The Great Pumpkin (don’t know if it’s the most sincere pumpkin patch) and Stella had been talking about seeing Sally and Maizie had been talking about Lucy so they had to get their pictures taken with them and Teddy's got a thing for Schroeder. 

Then we went into the corn maze. The kids were excited because Ted is reading them The Hobbit and the maze reminded them of the Mirkwood Forest because we kept saying to stay on the path. I just kept thinking of The Shining.

So much to do, so much to do. The pumpkin coach was waiting so we all piled in and went for a ride, it didn’t take us to a ball though. 

The pirate ship was docked and they stormed aboard.

There was “treasure”, as Stella called it, to be found in the little western town. Let me tell you, if there is treasure to find, Stella is your girl.

By this time, the curtain started going down on the short attention span theater (considering it had been about two hours, I was quite impressed) and it was time to start herding them out. A few more photo ops, a fly around the town and we were outta there…until next year!