Fall Fun Kickoff

Since I am woefully behind on blogging, I'm going to make an attempt to get caught up over the next couple of weeks. What that means for you is that you'll be seeing lots of posts, most of which are a bit outdated. Bear with me :-).

Autumn is hands-down my favorite season of the year. I really love all the seasons for their own reasons (and I'm SO thankful to live in a state that has four seasons . . . including 100+ degree days in the summer and 10 degree days in the winter), but there's just something about Autumn that I love. Because of this, we have many Autumn traditions that we enjoy.

Our Autumn really kicked off at the end of September. We had a {rare} free weekend and decided to head up to visit my parents for the weekend. The weather was nice and the air had just a touch of that fall crispness in it, so we decided to take the kids to a local farm that hosts a fall festival each year. 

After arriving at the farm, the first thing we came upon was a playground. We didn't spend too long playing as there were so many other {more interesting} things to do, but the kids were excited from the word go!

They both think they're so big . . . it's sometimes a bit hard on their poor Momma's heart.

After playing on the playground, we headed up toward the large barn to see some animals. Unfortunately, most of the animals were out to lunch, but we did get some cute photos.

I kind of hate these stick-your-head-in-the-hole type of things, but the kids enjoyed it :-).

There was also a hayride available for those who wanted to ride. We all thought it sounded like fun, so we hopped on!

I didn't know this until this day, but apparently my Mom is totally freaked out by hayrides. Something about an incident on a hayride (like it almost crashed or did crash or something?) when she was in junior high. This was the first hayride she's been on in YEARS. She was a big girl and did great :-).

Of course, checking out the tractors was a must. Brenson is totally into tractors and big trucks these days.

We were also able to see pigs, chickens, goats, etc. There was a lot going on at that farm!

After eating lunch on the property, we headed back to the playground for a few minutes before going home. However, after just like 3 minutes the sky started to spit rain at us, so we started for the parking lot. We were almost to the cars when Mom noticed the pond with ducks. She had heard there was a pond with ducks and had brought a loaf of bread with us to feed them. We decided to go for it in spite of the rain (that ended up letting up just a few minutes later).

My dare-devil child thought that feeding the ducks was fantastic! She wasn't scared a bit!

Brenson kept running toward the water. Mom thought he was going to run right in.

Notice she has a grip on his shirt :-).

Brianna got a little too close to the ducks and actually got nipped on the hand by one. Had that been me as a child, I would have FREAKED OUT. If I'm being completely honest, that would freak me out now as an adult! But my no-fear child? She didn't care.

I think she actually thought it was kind of great. She talked about it for days.

My sweet blue-eyed boy :-).

It was really great to spend a day with my little family!

You may have noticed Brenson's long hair in the above photos. Chris and I both liked his hair kind of long, but felt like it needed a bit of a trim. However, the back was SO beautiful and curly that neither of us wanted to risk cutting it and losing those curls. Isn't is so pretty?

My dad felt pretty strongly that he needed a haircut, so after naptime Chris and Dad took Brenson for a trim.

The front looked much better, but I hated to see those curls go *tear*. Plus, the haircut made him look like a year older than he was.

We finished out the night with a pot of chili, bath time, and a debut of our new Halloween pjs. Those silly pjs glowed in the dark, and the Bs were fascinated by them. They had to go in every room in Mom and Dad's house, turn out the light, and see their jammies glow. So much joy in the little things!

This was the perfect weekend to kick off our fall fun!