Destination Fall - Pumpkin Patch

Visiting the pumpkin patch is one of my favorite fall activities. It's one of the kids favorites too but not because of the pumpkins, even though they do have fun carving the ones we eventually pick out. For them, the definition of a pumpkin patch also includes pony rides, petting zoos, bounce houses, inflatable obstacle courses, quad rides, corn field mazes and finally traipsing through an actual pumpkin patch.

Unfortunately what has always been one of my favorite photo ops usually yields less than the spectacular results I would like. For starters, it is always still in the 90's when we go, hardly "fall-like" weather. With the bright sun and two kids who really want to be doing anything but posing with pumpkins, it makes it hard to get the perfect shot (oh and throw in there my less than stellar photography skills).

This year, I tried to be much more relaxed about the whole thing. I didn't dress the kids up in coordinating orange and black outfits or spend mass amounts of time trying to bribe them into cooperating for the perfect smile. We just had fun, took some pictures and created some great family memories along the way. Just don't tell Joe. With his allergies acting up and these sorts of things already not being top on his list, I am sure he would use other adjectives to describe the outing but he really was a good sport most of the time and the kids couldn't stopping talking about it on the way home.

One of the highlights from our visit was the upgraded corn field maze, which they made both more challenging and entertaining by adding 4 stamping stations hidden throughout the maze. If you found two of the stations and stamped your card you won a necklace, if you found all 4 stations you won two necklaces. Well this kind of game was right up Jake's alley and he was unwilling to give up until he had achieved the ultimate victory, even though my feet were aching and at one point we stumbled across the exit and deposited Jadyn with Daddy as she was quite over it by that point. Therefore, I got some quality bonding time with my favorite little problem solver and we emerged victorious!

This "photo op" had the sun right in their poor little faces, which doesn't lend to a very good result:

But after waiting for the sun to start setting, we were able to come back and get a few better shots: