Day #222

Friday

Our annual trip to the pumpkin patch! 

We arrived a little before 10 and the girls played and asked a million times when friends would show up. 

So these pictures are out of order because they came from 3 different people, and of course they would be. 

We went on the hayride as soon as Ainas came. 

After the hayride everyone grabbed their lunches. 

Ellie and D ate up on this play structure. Notice D chatting it up with the nuns. 

Later, Addie told us that she asked one of them if she was dressed up as Mother Teresa. She answered back, no, but we have the same husband. 😂 I’m glad she had a sense of humor about the whole thing. The whole day brought fascinating people to watch. Lots of homeschool groups and also some Duggar looking Christian youth groups. I wanted to make friends with all of them, people are so interesting!

Probably laughing about the nun story. 

We have good kids. They share lunchables, jerky, candy, and gum - usually on their own without prompting. 

Sarah and I actually didn’t ever go in the corn maze, but all the kids did. This is such an awesome stage of life! Gone are the days of a parade of double strollers tromping through the maze! After 24 years, I’ve earned my time  to sit out on a couple corn mazes. 😂

We got to the patch early enough to eat warm pumpkin and apple cider donuts. 😋 

Waiting for friends. And that little girl to Addie’s left totally wanted to be a Ray sister. 😂

D is a lot. She’s got a lot of brains and a lot of confidence. And a lot of other things.  

I ❤️ these. 

Addie and Abby did some walking around. Somehow they toppled a stone horse they’ve been playing on for years. That thing was heavy and I’m so glad no one got hurt. 

Our obnoxious climbers. Always on top, not inside. 

More hayride fun!

The corn was a dry mess this year. More 2020 baloney. 

It was papa’s first hayride and he loved it! First corn maze too! Yay for small town country living!

We always get a picture of everybody on the steps getting off the truck, but there were already people waiting to get on. 

We settled for this quick shot of all the kiddos. (before Schoeny’s came)

More lunching. 

It was nice and warm and Delaney had the reddest cheeks! She’s trying to look at the mirror on my pop socket while I was trying to take a picture. 

She took off her socks and shoes and cooled off for awhile after this. 

Cools down break with the bestie. 

Sarah has been texting Joni all day, and finally around 3:30 her crew showed up. I didn’t bring a lunch, just snackies and was kind of ready to go, but then it was so nice to have another person to talk to that we stayed. 

We ended up staying til after 6. They closed at 5 and I kept going expecting someone to come kick us out, but they never did. 

Then we got this amazing sunset as we were picking our pumpkins as we were leaving. 

It was so beautiful! 

We stayed for over 8 hours! 😂 😮 😂

The kids played corn maze tag and had such a blast. 

Grateful for wonderful mom friends. 💕

Always. On. Top. 

A perfect end to a pretty perfect day. 

Except actually the day started off rough with some more Tenkor booty messes on the brand new carpet. Matt’s got some stressful stuff at work and it just all felt like a lot, especially when the other messes aren’t even fully taken care of. I put down oxy clean powder and oxy pet stain remover and scrubbed, then added more oxy powder to sit while we were gone, and thankfully that seemed to work. We are so happy to help Alli and we do love Tenkor and also we’ve worked so hard and sacrificed so much to beautify our home. It feels bratty and obnoxious to complain about, but it’s hard.  Thankfully we were able to salvage the day and enjoy ourselves and forget about stinky pet messes, so that was wonderful. 

Just look at that! Heavenly Father loves us, there’s just no question. 

We came home to Alli back from NOLA safe and sound, and Matt with frozen pizzas in the oven. Such a great day.