Fall 2017: Adventures for the Kiddos

Here's my cute little girl at the library playground enjoying the last day of the year warm enough to play outside in a skirt.

Earlier that day Allison had asked for more puffs (Trader Joes pirate booty), but we'd already finished off the bag. Tyler completely unprompted gave her some of his own and said "mommy I'm following the golden rule!" I was so proud since I'd just taught him about the Golden Rule the previous week as part of an LDS preschool curriculum I'd downloaded. Then later at the park he was too scared to do this obstacle until some older girls said "you can do it. We'll show you how." He was able to make it through easily following after them and told me "they're following the golden rule!"

Allison is my sweet little jumper girl while Ty likes pretending to be a server offering me food and drinks at his little window.

Here's sweet Allison having fun at the museum and at library storytime

One morning we met up with Liz and Eli. Both he and Allison liked the dinosaur bones pit. Eli just wanted to find as many shovels as he could. Good thing they were the only two kids.

A neat V of birds came flying over the playground while we were there.

Fearless Allison can already go down the big yellow slide, but most of all she enjoys pushing buttons and playing instruments.

Ty got his own day at the museum too. I took him at the end of October for some fun Halloween festivities. They held it on a Saturday, which is always super busy, so I don't dare take both kids in those crowds. Plus Allison doesn't get much out of their extra events.

Ty came dressed up in his Mr Incredible costume ready for some goopy creations and creepy science experiments.

This lady on the left is always very sweet and helpful in the art studio. Here Tyler's making a sucker monster.

We attended the Harvest Festival at Tyler's school where Tyler had fun earning candy and prizes while playing games. Allison was our sweet tittle dancing girl just running anound enjoying all the fun going on around her. I didn't get any pics of Ty since I needed to assist him so much with the games (they were clearly made for older kids, which is no surprise since it is an elementary school).

Here's Tyler out for breakfast with daddy after a fun night camping in the car before helping to clean up Ensign Ranch. He had some good sensory fun with his pancakes.

I had to take advantage of our gorgeous warm weather one random Thursday in October and took the kids out to The Farm at Swans Trail where Oscar's work often does their annual picnic. I wanted to try a different pumpkin patch, but I did some research and concluded it was the best place to take the kids to on a weekday. The other farms don't offer nearly as much unless it's a weekend, and they charge for activities at age 2 while The Farm doesn't charge until age 3. $8 total was well worth it for 3 hours of bouncing pillows, several slides, a hay maze, a live duck race, rubber duckie races, corn pit, hay ride, hay tower, horse swings, and a petting zoo.

Allison loved the jumping pillows! She was all smiles.

Little miss on the roller slides. Kids seem to love this slide. Adults not so much.

Horsey swings! She loved this, but there's no harness to keep her on it, so I just had to stay real close and make sure she didn't tip over and fall off.

Duck races! I was delighted they were doing it on a weekday. I've never seen this many people at a farm in the middle of the week.

Cute kiddos enjoying the hay maze. They have a slide at the end, but it's crazy steep. Tyler would go flying off of it. I didn't trust that Allison would be safe, so I held her hand while she slid down and slowed her descent.

Allison also loved the corn pit. She was even jumping on some other kids' daddy! Tyler liked it okay but was more inerested in the rubber ducky races.

We even got to go on a hay ride. At most farms the hay ride is strictly a weekend activity. 

When we went into the pumpkin patch, Tyler tried carrying around every pumpkin he wanted to buy. 

Love my little pumpkin hugger!

Everybody taking a break and sitting on pumpkins.

Tyler tried to take a picture of me, but I couldn't convince him to take his fingers off the lens.

The pic on the right shows the haystack we decided to climb next.

We hadn't realized there was an easier way up on the backside. I was pretty much tossing the kids up to each level. Once we got to the top we saw the backside was built like a bunch of stairs.

 And we finished our visit at the petting zoo so Allison could hug some goats and sheep.

 A couple weeks later we visited Carleton farm in Lake Stevens. This was where we were going the day we got in our car accident. We still went after Oscar got home, called insurance, and switched out the cars. We'd gotten them all jazzed up about it, and everyone was uninjured, so we still made the trip out. 

They have a little hayride out to the patch. Allison didn't love it as much as she had the other one.

She was also extra fussy out in the patch, particularly when she'd trip over roots, but she looked super cute sitting and playing with the pumpkins.

Oscar and Tyler went to a different area and found our big 22 pound pumpkin.

While we were out, someone offered to take a picture of Allison and me. I wasn't expecting much since Allie had been so fussy, but they got some great pics with some beautiful smiles from my sweet girl.

We couldn't do the other activities since we'd gotten there so late, but we did try out a couple of pumpkin cannons. It was neat but very hard to watch in the sunlight.

 I took the kids back the next Saturday so we'd get a chance to do the activities. We'd seen a jack-o-lantern jumping pillow online, but when we got there they told us Allison couldn't do it - ages 3+. That really upset me since it hadn't said anything about age limits online (it actually said "fun for the whole family"), and her activity pass was the same cost as Tyler's. In the end even Tyler couldn't enjoy it because he didn't want to be there alone, and I couldn't stay with him since Allison was just screaming to get on while I tried desperately (and unsuccessfully) to hold her back. I told the employees I was very disappointed. I felt like I'd been part of a "bait and switch" and told them they shouldn't charge the same cost for a 2 year old if she's not allowed to do all of the activities. I also thought it was dumb to even have an age requirement since there hadn't been any on the jumping pillows at the Farm at Swan's Trail.

Allison still had fun, but I had to keep her out of sight of the jumping pillow she wasn't allowed on.

Thankfully she did get to do the cow train in spite of the 4+ age recommendation. Why they enforced it for the jumping pillow but not the train is beyond me.

We went back to the car to get some snacks before going to play in the corn crib in the barn

They've got a really neat slide going into the corn.

They also have a rope swing to land in the hay. Allison doesn't yet have the skills for that, but she still enjoyed playing with the rope.

And to finish off the morning the kids enjoyed meeting and feeding the goat family.  We loved the three baby goats. Too bad they weren't available for petting just then.

Tyler and Allison were super adorable at the Chennault Beach Halloween party.

Allison was totally fascinated by the girl dressed up as a dancing dinosaur. She also loved pulling down all the decorations and putting herself in danger climbing up this ladder.

 Ty enjoyed being wrapped up like a mummy, marching in the parade, and doing crafts.

Our ward had a Halloween party too with lots of fun, clever games. Unfortunately we were too busy chasing and wrangling children to take many pictures. At least Oscar got a few cute videos. Allison was just adorable running around during the cupcake walk.