Pumpkin Patch!

We went to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch for our annual fall fun. I usually dread this outing because it dusty or hot or the kids are acting up or it's packed out the wazoo but this year the outing was perfectly wonderful!  We went early during the week, the weater was nice, no wind, and the kids were fed and well-behaved.

We always start in the little hay maze for kids. Rachel had fun figuring out which way to go.


Nicholas spent most of his time just trying to keep up with Rachel! It was easier for him though since he's tall enough to look over the maze path from above.


Rachel was thrilled with all the wooden cut-outs of her favorite characters. 
"Hi Piglet!"


As always they played on the trains. 



They were even nice to each other and shared the driver's seat!

"Choo! Choo!"  He's still a little boy, isn't he?


I asked Rachel to pose with Dora since this is one of her favorite characters.  She didn't really understand what I meant because she just kept standing BEHIND Dora.  I love this picture of Rachel's little fingers poking out the top of Dora's big purple hat!

A sad little ghost.  I don't know why she looked so sad



Nicholas and Elmo made a cute pair as they both said "Boo!" to people that passed by.

There was a lot of aimless running around by all involved.  Go ahead and burn off that energy.  Nap time is coming!

They love Toy Story and spent a lot of time with these guys.  Which one of these is Buzz Lightyear???


Rachel tried to imitate Jessie the Cowgirl too but just ended up looking silly...and cute!



Here's the whole gang!  Rachel thought it was cool to stand between Jessie and Woody.

We have to get this picture every year just to see how they kids have grown from last year.  Wow, he's tall!

I think this is the first picture that I've gotten of Rachel here where she is actually standing up in front of the ruler.  In the past, she would run away as soon as I'd get her in position.  Hooray for age 3!


I love this picture of Nicholas scaring Shaggy!  It worked out perfectly!

Both kids walked by The Flintstones and said, "Who are they, Mom?"  Funny that such classic shows from our childhood are already lost to this generation.

But not The Smurfs.  Somethings do come back around to let the next generation meet them.  Rachel loves the little blue people.

Oh no!  The witch has cooking the boy in her witch's brew!

Of course, she had to have a turn in the witch's pot too!

I love that both of the kids played well together and enjoyed exploring and looking around at everything.


Nicholas requested that I take this picture with the giant pumpkin he found.

We went over to the giant play area and the kids played on this old fashioned playground ride that spins around in a circle.

You simply can not find this ride anywhere else in our area.  It was a lot of fun to ride on when I was little but I'm sure there are concerns about safety with kids falling off as it spins quickly around or even a child that is on the ground pushing it could fall under it and get hurt.  *sigh* 

What fun they are though!

I did worry a little about Nicholas as he ran around while pushing it.  They got it going really fast and I could just see him falling and getting hurt or even trampled by the kid behind him.  But how many times have we played on these and not gotten hurt?  And he was having so much fun!

Off to the bounce houses and obstacles courses!

Rachel spent most of her time on the slides.

I love this happy face!


Wheeeeeee!



Mommy, look how high I am!!!!

Lots of tunnels to play in.

Nicholas came over and joined in the fun.

He tried to keep Rachel still for a posed picture.  She was very squirmy and just wanted to go slide again.

I pulled them in wagons through the pumpkin patch.

They love this giant pumpkins with lots of doors and windows to play with.

One tough boy.....ahem, playing with the giant orange pumpkin.

One sweet girl opening and closing every door she could.

Smile!

Where's Nicholas???  Yep, he's still little :)

Such cuteness!  I just love spending every day with my little blessings.

Rachel wouldn't pose with Nicholas so I was going to just take a picture of her by herself.  But Nicholas figured out a way to get in the picture too.  Pretty creative and it turned out to be a cute picture.

We took the hay ride around the farm.  I love that we still have horses and cattle in our town even though it has grown exponentially since we moved here.

The hay ride was a good thing to do right before leaving.  It seemed to calm everyone down a bit which is just what I was hoping for before trying to get them loaded back in the van to leave.

Even the little squirmy one was sitting still just looking all around.

Good-bye Pumpkin Patch!  See ya next year.

Playing with Dry Ice

I wrote a blog post for the cool website Quirky Momma on how to make Spooky Fog Drinks. Make sure you check it out!

We ended up with a lot of extra dry ice that wouldn't keep for very long so we decided to play around with it some to see what it could do.

We made lots of the spooky fog drinks. Nicholas added a gummy tarantula to the side of his cup.


Wow!


Stuart used his cold weather gloves to keep from getting a frost burn because the dry ice is just that cold!

Wow!


The smoke is irresistable and you just have to blow on it!


There are a lot of videos here because there is just no better way to show you what this fun stuff does!

The dry ice comes in blocks so Stuart used a butter knife to help chisel off smaller pieces to put in our drinks. By accident, he realized that the dry ice made some cool sounds when he held the knife to it for even just a few seconds. He started with the end of the handle on the ice and then changed to the blade. Just beware that the blade on the ice makes a loud screeching sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.



Stuart is so fun when he gets in his scientist mode. He decided that we should see what would happen to dry ice if we put it in a carbonated drink. Here's what happened...



I thought the action was over so I stopped recording but then as the smoke cleared we noticed that this crazy thing had been happening. We just couldn't see it for the smoke. Check this out!



So next, my mad scientist decides that water with a little bit of dish soap might have an interesting effect. It did!



What fun things have you tried with dry ice?