Our annual fall trip to the pumpkin patch had to be moved once so that we could have a beautiful warm fall day. We enjoyed the sunshine, friends, maze, tractor ride, pumpkin picking, goat feeding, and a picnic. We love this playdate!

There were no photos of all of the kids looking at the camera so I picked one with no one looking at it. Why fight kid-nature.

Aiden enjoying the gravel.

Maeve and Lincoln being sweet together.

Elena having fun among the cornstalks.

Emily bringing in her pumpkin. I wonder if she gets that tongue thing from her Mama?

Emily collected flowers from everywhere we went at the pumpkin patch and made herself a flower bouquet. I think she was pretending that she was a bride and that was her wedding bouquet.

An excited Julia!

Julia kept picking flowers and smelling them and then offering it to Mama to smell too.

Julia was proud of her pumpkin.

Kenzie and Heather picking out a pumpkin together.

Maeve feeding the goat.

Natalie found a rock in the pumpkin patch. She was headed over to meet the goats.

Baby Rose hanging out in the sunshine.

A Cowgirl and her trusty Cow.

Our friend, Sarah, invited us to join her neighborhood & church Harvest Party they have every fall. She has two children just a couple of months younger than both of Emily and Julia. We dressed up in our Halloween costumes for the party. Some years we have had costume issues when we went to put them on, but not this year. They loved them and loved being in them.

At the party there was a scavenger hunt, pumpkin decorating, yummy food, a story, and a pumpkin seed spitting contest. The girls enjoyed running around with the other kids finding the baskets of treats. Emily stuck pretty close to Grace the whole time and Julia wanted to be with Mama. Therefore, Mama saw a lot of Julia and not much of Emily.

Emily had a very serious face and wind blown hair.

We got to practice the word “lollypop” a lot, because it seemed to be Julia’s favorite candy in her basket.

When it was time to decorate the pumpkins they were very serious and content to stick their stickers on the pumpkin. It was fun to watch the serious work. There is so much to learn about kids and how they approach tasks.

The lollypop stick kind of reminded Mama of the toothpick or strand to hay a cowboy might chew on while on the range.

It was surprising that so many kids would sit for a story and be quiet, but they did.

The pumpkin seed spitting contest was funny. Julia didn’t want to try until the third spit. Emily gave it her best try, but she had some bad bounces that brought her seed back to her.

The only sad faces I saw were at the end when it was time to go home with our tummies full of lunch and sweets. We had so much fun in the warm sunshine playing with others. Mama even met some new mamas. Fall is so much fun with nice weather and fun activities.

Julia “moo-ed” for Mama. If you asked her what her costume was she would tell you, “Moo-Cow”. She was very happy to moo anytime you asked her what a cow says. She didn’t keep the cow hat on much, but loved the costume so much she didn’t even take it off for nap when she got home.

We visited the Museum of Appalachia for their annual homecoming. It has been years since Mama has visited the Museum and it was a great day to visit. The weather was another wonderful fall day here in East Tennessee.

We met our friends and explored. We enjoyed the tractor corner, visiting the knitting machine, listening to some of the music, eating curled potato fries, checking out vendor booths, finding old cabins to explore, and enjoying the sunshine. The girls enjoyed playing with Elena, Maeve, and Lincoln. The girls started to wind down as we got close to naptime and we headed home.

Emily helped “Fancy Nancy” run her knitting machine. They were making hats, but it looked like a really long sock. Both girls enjoyed turning the machine crank.

Our normally shy Julia would have stood there all day turning the crank if we hadn’t moved on.

Emily liked the tiny pumpkin.

One really happy Lincoln enjoying his ride.

She looks pretty comfortable up there.

Friends just hanging out and taking in the sights.

A beautiful Fall morning took us to the Knoxville Botanical Gardens for a playdate. It was perfect. The kids had fun exploring and running around with each other. It is tough to get great photos of moving kids, but I got a few. We are looking forward to the next fun Fall playdate.

Hey, look we got all seven kids to look the same direction at the same time . . . kinda.

As a reward we asked them to make silly faces. It seemed to be a hit for the over-two crowd.

A great and hard-to-photograph genuine Emily smile.

Sweet Elena

Grins from the sun-kissed Julia.

An almost smile from McKenzie.

A pixie smile from the pixie Maeve.

Just some more photos of our fun playdate!

Fall leaves make good piles – good piles make for good fun! We had a morning playdate with the leaves this morning. There was a lot of jumping, wading, dumping, and pushing. The kids enjoyed picking up leaves and dumping them on each other. Kids sure are fun to watch! Thanks Aiden, Elena, and Maeve for coming to play today.