Pumpkin Patch Plus

I have to admit that these kinds of posts are my least favorite to write and read. But I have a lot of them to do for posterity's sake, so I'll do it. It's just that every Mommy Blog has a Pumpkin Patch Post and a Halloween Post and a Zoo Post and they are pretty much all the same. So, at the end of this post, I promise 2 things that are different and hopefully funny.

We had Fall Break 2 weeks ago and my kids have been waking each day about 6:47 and fighting and crying ensues by 6:49 (which bytheway now means 5:47 with daylight savings time). So I knew I had a L O N G week ahead of me with no school to break up these days. The first day of the break I called Mina to see if she wanted to do something and she already had plans to go to the Pumpkin Patch with her friend Rachel. Naturally, I invited myself along, because who would pass up an afternoon at the Pumpkin Patch on a beautiful Fall day?

Unfortunately after a long drive out to Broomfield we found that all the pumpkins had frozen and rotted from the cold front the previous week.

I decided to go with the take-pictures-from-afar-and-hope-that-you- can't-tell-they-are-all-squishy-and-disgusting strategy.

Did it work? It's actually a great analogy for most of our picture taking situations. Things aren't ever as sweet and cute as I try to make them look in the pictures. For instance, getting these shots took lots of threatening and yelling from me. But they do look pretty sweet and cute, don't you think? Rotten pumpkins, mean photographer, and all.

Harrison, Logan and Bennet had a great time standing in the middle of the road and then freaking out and running away when they saw a car way off in the distance.

Little boys are so funny.

And cute.

This little girl fell asleep on the way there and waking up from naps is pretty painful these days. So she was having none of me trying to get pictures of her in the patch.

The kids enjoyed the hay maze. I like this Beatle-esque picture, minus one.

The bouncy slide and bounce castle were a big hit too.

So this nice stranger took it upon herself to help Elizabeth down the slide. All the big kids made a huge deal of the "baby invasion" when 2 little kids showed up. Yesterday, I told Elizabeth she was such a big girl because she is doing such a good job going on the potty. And she said, "Then how come at the pumpkin patch those kids were calling me a baby?"

So, this is our "pile of pumpkins" picture for the year. I need to get over the fact that we may never find piles like we had in CA.

Now time for the "Plus" part of this "Pumpkin Patch Plus" post.

BABY BRAIN INCIDENTS

My absentmindedness is always a problem, but I swear is gets worse with every pregnancy.

*Locked my church keys in the church and had to go home to get Nate's church keys in order to retrieve my keys.

*Left my wallet at the grocery store - thankfully 36 hours later when I realized where I'd left it, I called and they had it.

*Left my cell phone at the chiropractor.

*Accidentally flung my wedding ring into a 2 foot high snowbank along the length of my friend's driveway. Thankfully she helped me look and found it after 45 minutes.

*Totally flaked on my friend who I have a standing arrangement with to watch each others kids. Passed her as she was entering my neighborhood and had to turn around and go back when I realized what was happening.

*Got in my car while talking on my home phone and drove away, as if it were a cell phone. Wondered why it suddenly dropped the call and thought it must have been my friend's phone cutting out, before I realized I was on a land line!

*Not realizing I had my elastic waistband maternity pants on backwards all day until after I had been to Elizabeth's dance class, play group, and Harrison's school. I had been thinking all day "I thought these pants had pockets." They do. They're just much harder to use when they're on your rear!!!

I'm sure I'll have many more of these crazy stories to report through the rest of the pregnancy and beyond. Because really, you never bounce all the way back.

CLEPTOMANIAC UPDATES

Elizabeth has continued her thieving ways.

*At Harrison's school Halloween Party, I found her with a pocketful of tiny people figurines that she had snuck out and taken from the next door teacher's classroom.

*She hid two loaves of pumpkin bread that my visiting teacher brought over (one for me and one for my other visiting teacher), in a bag under the kitchen sink.

*After the stealing eyeshadow from Target incident, I thought I was being really on the ball asking her if she had anything that wasn't ours as we were leaving Wal-Mart the other day. She said no and then I went to check her pockets and realized she didn't have any. So I thought we were safe. Upon returning home, she produced 2 things of chapstick. She had smuggled them out in her underwear. I should have remembered, that was an old trick of hers.