Pumpkin Patch

This past Saturday we took our now annual trip to Johnson Farms, aka the pumpkin patch. Joseph was really excited to see all the animals on the farm. He watched the ponies waiting to give rides, and stamped his foot along with them. 

 The have a few really neat playground pieces that Joe wants to try and replicate some day - particularly this pirate ship.

Joseph acted like he really wanted to play on it, but I think with so many things to do, he quickly got distracted and headed off. And by that I mean he ran. Especially when he saw the train!

There wasn't really a choice on whether or not he'd get to go for a ride, and Joe decided to hop in with him. The train ride is actually a relatively long one, going around a big portion of the family events/areas.

 Pretending they're on a bigger, faster, more roller coaster like ride...

After the train ride, he headed over to this old fire truck they have parked nearby. He had fun playing in the cab, and checking things out. I think it's time for a trip on Grandpa's fire truck!

We made sure to snap a few pictures at the "look how I've grown this year sign." Sniff, sniff. It's amazing how he's grown and changed this year!

Finally we convinced Joseph to head out to the fields by showing him the tractor-pulled hayride. He really didn't want to pick a pumpkin - he'd had much more fun on the ride there and back!

But then he realized there was lots of wide open space to run, which is definitely one of his favorite things to do now.

And a few paces in, I helped him pick a great pumpkin. We had a groupon for the patch that included $10 worth of pumpkins, so we picked 3 small ones... that only ended up retailing for a little under $4. Oh well! It was nice to not need a big cart this year. We figured since we aren't going to be in town for Halloween, it was a little silly to spend a lot on the decorations. Especially when Joseph doesn't quite understand things yet.

And so we took the return hayride back to the farm, checked out and headed home before Joseph got too tired. It was such a fun trip to the pumpkin patch - watching Joseph get into all of the play areas and farm animals was really cute and a great preview to what the coming years will be like!