(Birthday) Preschool Pumpkin Patch

Aubree's birthday happily fell on the day we planned to take our little pre-school group to the nearby Family Farm/Pumpkin Patch, so I pulled her out of school at noon and brought her with us (admission: I am constantly fighting the urge to pull her out of school "just a half day" for all kinds of fun stuff).  Some of her homeschooled friends joined us, which made the trip extra special and fun for her.

 Though our preschool group officially includes only 6 kids, we open up our field trips to all our friends, so we had a crowd.

Part of our group learning about how pumpkins are grown

We've been to a quite a few pumpkin patches/piles in our time as parents, and this one definitely receives top ranking!  The kids got to do all kinds of fun activities, like hay rides, go-karts and tractor trikes, a hay maze, petting zoo,

 and tractor rides.

 They had a huge play area with slides and assorted activities.  Aubree and her friends pretended to be cowgirls and practiced their lassoing skills.

 Where were my boys?  At the water stations, of course.

The favorite activity of the afternoon was the corn bin.  Aubree later said, "I could have stayed there for hours and hours."

 Bryce decided to practice his swimming skills.

 And his posing skills too.

We tried again to get a good picture of all our preschool kids. Maybe by the end of the year we'll be successful.  Maybe.

 The trip ended with chocolate milk and the chance for each kid to choose their own pumpkin.  Thane quickly found one he wanted, but was a little upset about how dirty it was.

Aubree and her friend searched through the rows determined to find just the right ones.

 

Bryce left the crowd and headed to the far edges of the field to find his special pumpkin.  Alas, once he found it, it was so bulky he couldn't lift it to get it into his bag, so Aubree had to run out to help him.  Of course, guess who ended up carrying said heavy pumpkin?

 Oh yeah, and we learned our lesson from last year and remembered to wear our rain boots this time around.  Made all the difference in the world.