Pumpkinland Revisited

Pumpkinland is practically a tradition around here. We have gone again, and again, and again. We don't always get there but we always enjoy it when we do. This year, only Ivory's class from school went, leaving four children who still hadn't gone. (Well, and two parents...but do parents really count?)

Tyler was busy one Saturday, so I thought I would take the kids out. It happened to be the same Saturday that I took June out for pictures. (Lest you think we face paint her every day.) Coincidentally the same Saturday that I hurt my back. Lucky for me, all the kids are old enough to run around on their own and I am allowed to traipse along and take pictures.

Always got to get a group shot.

There were some etched pumpkins displayed. This was my favorite.

And then we got to the corn maze. The maze was weird this year. It wasn't very mazey, if that makes any sense. There were hardly any turns and we never found a secret room or anything. I asked other people and they had the same problem. We did find a cat however. It is the Vineyard Garden cat and he came along for a while.

I enjoyed following the striped socks.

See how not twisty?

I adore this shot here.

We eventually got around to the cut-out people and you always have to stop and take a couple pictures.

We lost the cat for a while but then it came back and June had her turn holding it. I think she was proving that she LIKES cats. There has been much debate as to whether she is allergic to them. If she is, it is hardly severe, evidenced by this smile and her lack of adverse reactions.

The kids played and requested pictures as usual. Who knows what Ives is doing, but she is proud of it.

They had a new theme this year. It went along with Alice in Wonderland. Here I am in the Queen of Hearts room.

And they changed the big pumpkin to a Cheshire Cat.

No, that is not my child. Mine had all deserted me to go play on the bouncy toys by then.

Check out that hair on Pearl. She sure has a lot. And it looks awesome when she is bouncing around.

Back to the Alice theme. We were supposed to be looking for Alices along the way. We found two. (I think one of the turkey's was named Alice and we missed that. There were supposed to be some Alice's in the maze, but we never found any. Like I said, it was weird this year.

But the kids still had fun. There was a shadow box that was new.

Then eventually Pearl took her shoes off and was confined to the wagon. Does anyone else have children that take their shoes off at random inconvenient moments?

And then Daisy saw Pearl with no shoes, and decided that would be a good idea. She took hers off and walked around in the muddy sand. That is when I stopped taking pictures and started watching children more closely. (With some intermittent scolding.) (And possibly I lost some children for a while as well. This is why you bring two parents.)

But we managed to leave with a wagon load of pumpkins, two shoeless children, one sore back, three free bags of popcorn, and mostly smiles all around. We'll call that a success.

We love you Pumpkinland. Thanks for always being there.