The Pumpkin Patch

What are you doing for Halloween this year? It seems that through the years we have done a variety of different things. When the older kids were really little we took them to our churches fall festival here in Alabama. The festival was on a farm and they were able to see some animals, go on a hayride, and play some games. In Tennessee we always attended our churches fall festival as well. Our church in TN was rather a large church and they put on a huge and really fun fall festival every year. The kids always had a blast! While living in North Carolina we were blessed to be apart of one of the best churches we have ever been in but it was a very, very small and newly planted church and they did not do fall festivals. So while living in NC we spent each year trick or treating with our wonderful neighbors. To this day the kids say those were the best Halloweens. We were blessed with an amazing neighborhood in NC of which had many many other children our kids ages. Within the first 6 houses on our culd-e-sac their were 21 children and so as you can imagine Halloween was a big celebration every year. While I have never been much of a fan of all of the ghosts, witches, and other scary part of Halloween, I did always love the opportunity that it brought to spend more time with our neighbors and I loved seeing our kids having so much fun with their friends. Well, these past 2 years since moving back to Alabama we had taken the kids back to our old church in Tuscaloosa for their fall festival. The festival had sinced moved and is no longer on a farm. The kids favorite part of the festival is of course playing the games and getting lots of candy but their isn't much time dedicated to the games and cake walk part of the festival and the kids got really frustrated last year because we had to rush so fast to get us all through all of the games, face painting, and cake walk and even with all of our rushing the lights were turned out before we were able to play them all or all of the kids were able to get their faces painted. The older kids felt like most of the games were geared more towards the younger kids too. So it didn't surprise me when the kids asked if we could do something different this year. They requested to go trick or treating again with their neighborhood friends. They are pretty excited as it will be their first time to trick or treat in our current neighborhood. They are hoping to score lots of candy. ;-)

Each year we also love taking the kids to a pumpkin patch of some sort. We tried a new one this year. We went to the Shadow Lake Pumpkin Patch in McCalla for a little fall fun and really loved it! It's run by a wonderful local church in McCalla. The people are just wonderful and their are scripture references all throughout the farm which is such a blessing! It's a beautiful place to hang out and spend the day. The kids all had a blast! Their were only a few other people at the time we went and so we pretty much had the games and inflatables all to ourselves. Here are some pictures from our time their.































Train ride




















It's official! I have a child that's taller than me! WOW!
















Corn cob toss


Bean Bag toss


Ball toss






In this game the kids had to find the pumpkins in the corn but had to beware as their were mice in the corn too. ;-)


The mice looked so real and the girls would scream every time they ran across one! This was such a creative and fun game!










Spider relay


Ring toss






















Camden on the drive home from the pumpkin patch.