Pumpkin Patch

Matt and I decided that this year might be fun to start a family tradition.  In the last month or so he had been talking a lot about a pumpkin patch that his family visited in North Carolina.  I had been hearing a lot about a local pumpkin patch called Layman Family Farms, but I wondered if it would hold up to Matt's expectations.

 

We got there about 2:00 on a Saturday and as a surprise to us, it was not very crowded.

 

We paid our admission, got our wrist bands, grabbed a map of the corn maze and headed out.  We decided to try the corn maze as our first activity.

Following our fearless leader, we headed into the deep jungle of corn....

 

But our leader got sidetracked many, many times.  Quite often she found parts of the ground that needed to be swept or cleaned.  Or she would find large dirt clods that needed to be carried from one location to another.

 So every once in awhile she had to have a guiding hand from her daddy to help her along in the maze.

 

Next we discovered the corn crib.  It was like a huge sandbox but instead of sand there was corn kernels to play with.  It took a bit for Grace to get up the courage to go in and play, but once she got in there we could not get her out (and we were finding corn kernels in the most interesting of places for the next few hours).

 

Then up the hill to the cow train.  Grace did not want to ride this alone so Matt was nice enough to fold himself in half and stuff himself into one of the cow train cars for a ride around the field.  Once she got to ride on her daddy's lap she was as happy as a lark.

 

We could not leave the cow train station without riding on the tire horse swing.  These were so cool, and they were each made out of one complete tire.  Grace fit in the seat very well and had wonderful hand holds with the ears.  She enjoys all swings but this one she could do on her own.

Finally it was off to do what we came here for.  A hayride to find the perfect pumpkin.

Mommy, I want this one!

We did not get the bumpy, mutated one.  We got a nice, "normal" pumpkin.  Grace seemed just fine with it.  She had to hold it on her lap on the hayride back to the barn.

Oh, I forgot one thing that Matt did that we did not get pictures of.  He had the chance to shoot two pumpkins out of a pumpkin cannon.  He tells me that they explode very nicely.

Finally it was time to go. Matt stated that the pumpkin patch was not exactly what he remembered, but it was a good place and fun to go to.  I do feel that we have started a new family tradition.