A day at the pumpkin patch...

My favorite time of the year here in Utah has FINALLY arrived!!! It's autumn (and finally feels like it; no more of that 90 degree heat we were having earlier last week) and it's October; Halloween is just around the corner! I decided to take the 3 older boys, leaving Bentley at home with Spencer, to Cornbellys this past Friday afternoon; Grandpa Campbell came along too!We arrived just as they were beginning the pig races!
I was half expecting big UGLY pigs to race out of their pens,
not the little baby pigs that scampered through the racing ring...
THEY WERE SO CUTE and tiny!
Call me crazy but I think I want a pig now;
along with some ducks and a jersey cow...
SERIOUSLY!
Put me on a farm and I'd be in heaven...
that is, until it's time to start doing chores.

After watching the pigs race,
the boys raced the duckies over at the water pumps.
Noah remember the water pumps from last year and was SO EXCITED to play with them again this year.
It's a shame I don't have one of these water pump contraptions in my backyard;
it could keep the boys busy for HOURS!
Is it silly to suggest to Spencer that he build one???

Cohen & Noah

After playing at the water pumps for a bit,
the boys explored a maze that was built from bales of hay.
Once again,
they played FOREVER in this maze.
I actually had to crawl into it to get them after they refused to come out,
but I could see why they enjoyed playing in it.
There were fun little paths to follow just around every corner;
if only I didn't start to get hay fever crawling around in there with them,
I might had explored it with them.

Grandpa Campbell and I were fooled by reading a sign that read "Kiddie Corn Maze".
We decided to let the boys explore it,
with the belief it was only a small maze with maybe only two of three turns...
WRONG!
We were lost in that "Kiddie Corn Maze" for at least 45 minutes.

Same picture as the one above,
just a closer look.

Grandpa and the boys...
we were lost in that corn maze for so long,
at one point ALL the boys wanted either Grandpa to hold them
or me to push them in the stroller.

After emerging from the corn maze,
the boys rode down the speed slides for a bit.
Even I decided to slide down the slide a time or two,
holding Cohen,
and each time I zipped down it so fast,
I couldn't stop myself before skidding onto the dirt!
I think the boys would LOVE to have one of these slides in our backyard too!
It's easy enough to make;
just stack a few hundred bales of hay together,
secure them,
then attach the said "speed slide" onto one side of the mountain of hay...
VOILA!

Okay,
I am not kidding...
not only do I think the boys would love to have one of these
jumping blob pillow thingies in the backyard,
but I would too!
These things are SO MUCH FUN to jump on!
100x more fun than a trampoline.
Noah never managed to stay long jumping on his feet;
instead he bounced around on the thing on his toosh...
if he had crawled up in a ball,
we could have played the cockroach game with him.

This little man,
Ian,
was up and on this thing before I even finished getting his other brothers shoes off!
He's completely fearless and ran up on the jumping pillow and jumped around with all the big kids!
Any time he fell,
he just got right up again and continued to bounce;
even after a few face plants.
I KNOW he was the only two year old jumping around on the pillow,
I'm pretty sure the next youngest kid that dared to bounce on the pillow was Noah
and he didn't last long.Before leaving Cornbellys,
we stopped to pick out some pumpkins.
Noah wanted to take every pumpkin home;
he rearranged the entire pile of pumpkins before we left!
Ian had a difficult time choosing his pumpkin too.
Cohen got stuck with a little pumpkin;
it's one Ian found him and felt was size appropriate for Cohen.
I told the boys that we would only buy pumpkins that they could carry out themselves.
Noah and Ian both surprised me and managed to pick up some HUGE
(at least 20 pound)
pumpkins all on their own!...
however,
since the HUGE pumpkins were pretty $$$pricey$$$,
when the boys weren't looking I replaced their HUGE pumpkins with slightly littler pumpkins.
It's a good thing most pumpkins look alike,
otherwise I would have had some upset boys and an empty wallet.
I'm considering growing our own pumpkins next year...
REALLY,
the pumpkin patch industry is making a FORTUNE pound per pound off these pumpkins!
It's preposterous!!!

Since we were already spending a pretty penny on our pumpkins,
I decided to add two bales of hay and some corn stalks to our tab;
they really make the front porch look more festive for the season,
and let's be honest...
this is the closest I will EVER get to living on a farm...
Good ol' Les (Grandpa Campbell)
was kind enough to manhandle those bales of hay into the back of his truck;
I wasn't about to try and load them into the back of our Mountaineer on my own again this year
like I had done last year...
those bales of hay can make quite a mess and they're pretty heavy too!