Ragamuffins

Do you ever look back at pictures of yourself as a child and ask yourself, "Why in the world would my parents ever dress me in that?!?" Well I'm certain my children never will. :)

I just had to chuckle to myself as I looked through these pictures I took Monday afternoon of my little ragamuffins as we enjoyed a last minute outing to a pumpkin patch.

It happened completely on a whim. My intent was that we were going to be home all day, focusing on potty training, and just bumming around together. Ethan was pant less all morning long until right before we ran out the door.

That afternoon though, as the sun poured in through the windows, I just couldn't bare to spend it indoors. I threw some pants on Ethan, a dry shirt on Adelyn, and a last years a-tad-bit-snug shirt on Grayson and out the door we went. The boys had buckets in hand. We were on our way to find some nature trails and fill up our buckets with leaves and acorns and all things fall.

But, as a newbie to this area, I truly had no idea where I was headed. We just drove. I just assumed that somewhere along the way I would find somewhere pretty where we could hop out and walk a bit.

So we drove.

And we drove some more.

And then we happened upon an orchard. Tucked back in the hills (yes, there are a few!) and lakes around our home.

We just had to stop.

There was a petting zoo, a place to pick your own pumpkins, a place to paint your own pumpkins, wagon rides, and a country store.

Perfect. (Must say, I love their cooperation for a great pic in this next shot. Perhaps making them look directly in to the sun at me wasn't the greatest idea!)

I unloaded the kiddos from the van and we headed toward the petting zoo right away.

As soon as we entered the barn two llamas were there to greet us. They stuck their necks through the gate trying to get a closer look. Adelyn was not loving it. That poor girl started shrieking like nobody's business. I scooped her out of her stroller. As soon as I did the stroller moved closer to the llamas. Blackie (my pet name for him which was created three seconds ago), took it upon himself to then tip the stroller over and attempt to eat a wheel. Well this got Ethan going, who probably assumed that he was next on the menu for Blackie and Whitie. (Creative names eh?)

So, we quickly waved hello to the goats, sheep, chicks, and miniature horses, and off we went to go and paint a pumpkin!

The boys had fun painting their pumpkins. About half way through painting his Ethan decided that he wanted to get a new one. I explained to him that once a pumpkin was picked, that is the one that he would have to keep. He didn't like that answer all too much (a.k.a. taking his half painted pumpkin and throwing it back in with the rest), but with a bit of an explanation about how each and every pumpkin was going to be costing his mother $2, he contentedly continued painting his original choice.

I let Adelyn try to paint a pumpkin. She just tried to eat the brush and had paint all inside her mouth. I finished hers. :)

We had fun just getting down and dirty on the farm.

It was just such a fun unplanned outing. Oftentimes I am not very good with spontaneous outings with three young children. I can almost over plan to a fault and not do things on a whim like that, out of fear of the unknown or something going wrong.

It was a breath of fresh air to me, to all of us I think, both literally and figuratively, and I love these ragamuffin pictures because of it.