To kick off Halloween Season this year, Adelaida and I met five other toddlers and moms at a local pumpkin patch for fall activities and pumpkin fun.
The first thing we saw was an adorable setting for a group photo -- hay bales and pumpkins in front of a small shack -- so we stopped for a photo op. Do you know how long it takes to pose six toddlers for a photo, then try to get them all to look at the camera and smile simultaneously? I'm not sure how long such an amazing feat would take -- we gave up after about twenty minutes! This is the best photo I was able to get -- Gracie and Mireille on the top level, Adia standing by the pumpkin, Ann sitting on the ground, and Adelaida and Shreya sitting on the lower bale of hay.
Next we took a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch. Each of the kids got to pick a pumpkin, although most of them were more interested in pointing out pumpkins than in picking one up and walking around with it. The pumpkins were small, but still too large for Adelaida to carry ... until she found the perfect pumpkin! It was very small, had a long twisted stem, was rabbit-eaten on one side and slightly green on the other side, and Adelaida loved it! She picked it up as soon as she found it (even though she hadn't tried to pick any of the pumpkins up prior to that) and insisted on carrying it herself -- a difficult feat over the uneven ground of a pumpkin patch. (I tried so hard to get a picture of Adelaida with her pumpkin, but my camera stopped working here, so no cute pictures. Sorry!)
After the hay ride that returned us to the farm, we headed toward the corn bin. This is very much like a sandbox, except it is filled with corn kernels instead of sand -- much less messy and still just as much fun! Adelaida started by sitting on the side of the corn bin, picking up handfuls of corn from the bin, and emptying her hand outside the corn bin. I explained to her that the corn goes in the bin, and soon she was picking up corn around the bin, kernel by kernel, and putting it back in the bin. That done, she next made it her personal goal to completely fill the large red bucket with corn. Using a shovel would have been too easy, so she filled the bucket handful by handful, never tempted to play with the other kids until the bucket was completely full!After the corn bin, we stopped for a diaper change, where I found about a dozen kernels of corn in Adelaida's pants, socks, diaper, shirt, and hat. The most amazing thing is that I removed so much corn from her at that time, but still found four corn kernels several hours later while we were playing at home!
The pumpkin patch has several other attractions -- a rabbit village, a pumpkin toss, a hay bale pyramid to climb, and of course goats, cows, horses, sheep, chickens, pigs, and more -- but we spent the rest of our time at the giant slides. The pumpkin patch has two slides, and they are arguably the most exciting slides I've ever been down! The slides are built into the side of a giant dirt pile, so to begin, you first climb up a very large dirt hill. At the top of the hill, kids line up and patiently wait their turn to slide down the two slides. The slides are large plastic culvert tubes, lined on the bottom with some kind of slippery material that makes you slide down really fast! The tubes are large enough that I could slide down them comfortably, and I did that twice with Adelaida on my lap. The third time, I walked up the dirt hill with both Adelaida and Mireille while Prisca (Mireille's mom) waited at the bottom of the slides to "catch" the girls. I sent both girls down by themselves and they loved it! I followed them down, and when I got to the bottom, Adelaida was signing "more!" The girls went down the slides several more times and loved it. Unfortunately I was too busy pushing kids down the slide to take any pictures, but we all had a great time at the slides.
I'm definitely planning to take Adelaida back to the pumpkin patch next year -- it is so much fun!
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