The "Farm" Experience

I love fall, I do.  But it's really become commercialized.  Am I crazy here?  It seems like everyone wants to sell you a "farm experience."  And now that I have kids, I feel like I have to buy in.  But I also feel like I'm burning out on it.  The apple orchard that Greg and I have been going to forever?  I want nothing to do with it on a fall weekend anymore.  I'm in search of a real, authentic fall experience.  Maybe next year we need to go up to the mountains or something.

Anyhow, I'm rambling.  We had our moms of multiples fall party at a farm that I had never been to before.  To its credit, it was much less crowded that some of the other "farm experiences."  But we were kind of "herded" through the farm.  It was a "one way in, one way out" sort of thing.

Greg and Becca on the hayride.

Walking through the "corn maze" (path cut out through a field of weeds).

There was a bat "cave" with fake bats, and an inflatable thing that the Emma and Julie were too scared to go in.  Then we got to the planks through the "alligator field."  They liked this much better.  Even after Becca tried one set of stumps and did a face plant and cut open her forehead.

It was a little windy.

There were some animals, and then we arrived at the pumpkin "patch."  I love that my kids were racing around trying to find the smallest pumpkins.  At least that way, when we end up having to carry them, they aren't too heavy.

Becca trying to see what she looked like.

Emma, underwhelmed.

The final attraction was the giant mulch pile, with some tires and slides thrown on top.  Greg and I both thought it looked like a liability nightmare, but I'm sure we must have signed away our rights to sue somewhere along there.

Don't get me wrong, we had fun.  But now, a month later, I look back on it rather cynically.

Pumpkins

Still catching up from October...

The second weekend that Grandma and Papa were here, we went to the pumpkin patch.  It's an apple farm, too, but the apples were long gone by October.  We went to the same place with Grandma and Papa last year.


 It's the one with the bouncy innertubes.

Have you ever seen three more miserable faces at a pumpkin patch?  They wouldn't even look at me.

Finally, slightly less miserable.

Choosing her baby pumpkin.

Family picture, with the most smile we could get from Emma.

And a picture with Grandma and Papa, too.  Emma is still miserable.  At least in the pictures, she's miserable.  As long as she was doing what SHE wanted to do, she was fine.

And some instagrams from while we were waiting in line to pay.

We did also do the hayride this year, too, but I didn't get any pictures.  We were stuck in the middle and  couldn't see very well.  Plus, I was next to Becca, who was terrified of some kid in a wolf mask on the ride.

Apple Picking

We went apple picking last weekend.  It was mid-day, so try to ignore the horrid shadows.  There's only so much I can do for those.   :)

Emma is such a cheese ball.  She likes to make crazy faces whenever I try to take a picture.

My 3 little pumpkins.

Pickin' apples with my ladies.  They wanted to pull that wagon so bad.  The only problem was that they couldn't control it going downhill, and didn't want to pull on the uphills.  And, uh, this orchard's not really flat.

I still don't know why Emma's not in the bear picture.  She LOVES bears, and claims all are "her" bears.

That's Julie back there.

Emma

J & E working on their letter sounds.

They totally got in like this on their own.  Um, because they didn't want to walk anymore.

We got a few comments on the shirts, and someone asked me where we got them (Target, people.  It's not rocket science.), and I'll admit I brought some of it on myself.  It wasn't my original intention.   Emma and Rebecca were already dressed in something else, and I can't remember if someone took what Julie wanted, or if I was trying to convince her not to wear something she wanted to wear, I remembered the "new" pumpkin shirts.  And, of course, once Julie had one, the others wanted them.  Ok, fine.  So, of course there were lots of "Are they triplets?" questions.

But then?  Someone random asked if they could take a picture of them.  I mean, we were in public, so anyone could take a picture.  I gave her a funny look, because I thought it was rude.  And she laughed and said something like, "I know it's weird, but I want to show my husband."

I guess I just get tired of it.  I can only handle the attention for so long, and then it just starts to drive me crazy.  Really?  What, are my kids a freak show for your entertainment?

So she's trying to take a picture, and Emma's freaking out because she hears a tractor and she thinks it's going to run us over.  I'm glad she got a crappy picture.

Sigh.

Checking out the pumpkins.

Apple juice.

We finished up around lunch time, so we could either go to the one place nearby that was sure to be packed, or drive an hour towards home where the girls would surely fall asleep.

So, we stayed close.  It's fabulous brick oven pizza, but it also takes quite a while.  And three tired, hungry kids does not make for an enjoyable wait.  So yes, we were those parents, entertaining our kids with cell phones.

I like this one for the hint of purple sparkle nail polish left on her pinky from the NICU reunion.

In this one, you can see a tear.  :)

And then completely passively watching Doc McStuffins, once I finally got it to work.  4G is hit or miss in the mountains.

Random Notes from the Week

My kids love to collect acorns, from our back yard to anywhere that we go to (yes, including random parking lots). I love this picture of Julie collecting them at the farm a few weeks ago.

They are starting to recognize E's, R's, and J's when we label things. They also like to pretend to write our names, but they say "I gonna draw your name."

*Sometimes* they call elephants "olophants," but not all the time.

They also confuse "octopus" and "hippopotamus."

I love that when they're talking about their sister, they refer to her as "my Julie," "my Becca," and "my Emma."

Instead of "ABC"s, they call it "ABCD"s.  And anything with words or letters on it has "ABCD"s on it.

Becca loves ketchup.  And if you're not watching her closely, she'll just stick her hand in it and eat it off her fingers.

When the girls see the large exposed duct work in the grocery store or in restaurants, they call it "slides."

Emma and Becca say, "I want a blanket on to keep me cold."

Emma started calling her bear "Bear Grace."  (Grace is her middle name.)  And then she started calling Greg "Daddy Grace."

And just some random notes on Halloween before I forget...  There were A LOT of kids out.  It was kind of nice.  It's felt recently like Halloween was changing, losing some of its neighborly character.  But there really was a community vibe to it, which was nice.  We also went to a house of nurse who works in the NICU and recognized us (we didn't recognize her) - had no idea she was in our neighborhood!

And just to be totally random, the zoo had been posting pictures on their facebook page of the animals eating the leftover pumpkins from Boo in the Zoo.  And for some reason, I find it insanely adorable.

The Patch

Last Sunday was Greg's birthday, and we started our celebration by making him cook pancakes for all of us.  Later, we made him drive us all to the pumpkin patch.  Because we're nice like that.

The girls were all over the pumpkin patch this year.  They just kind of took off.

E finds her pumpkin

Of course, it was only the lure of pushing the "dragon" that got them out of the fields.

Papa, J, and R

R

J

E

For all of their trekking through the pumpkin patch, they weren't particularly interested in actually finding a pumpkin.  I kept trying to point some nice ones out, but they just humored me and kept trouncing around.  Eventually, we ended up with pumpkins.  

After that, we did the mini corn maze.  We had done the mini one last year and I swear it took us a good 30-40 minutes.  I'm not sure if it was smaller this year or what, but we were done in about 10 minutes.  I'm still not sure I'm ready to take them out into one of the bigger mazes - what would I do if they freaked out in the middle of it? - but we may have outgrown the mini version.  Emma kept wanting to run ahead, out of sight, and I don't know if I could handle that in the bigger maze, either.

We visited the animals again this year, too, and with the sheer terror that animals have been inciting lately, I thought we were surely in for a quick trip.  But they were a lot more curious than they have been lately.  There were other kids there, too, feeding the animals and I'm not sure if that's what intrigued them, but I still think we're a ways away from the girls actually petting or feeding the animals.

R

Emma kept refusing to smile

One of my favorite pictures of all time

The closest I got to getting a picture of her smiling

Oh, and there were no screaming scary monkeys at the farm.  I guess it has that going for it, too.