I can’t believe this is my 6th annual post I am writing out about our apple picking adventures. I don’t know why I almost typed out, licking there instead of picking, maybe it’s because some of my boys actually did lick the apples, but anyway, I’m getting off on a tangent. Anyone else’s brains seem to move faster than they can type?
This has been a tradition for us ever since A was born. We have pictures of him being a few days old with pumpkins. We alway go around this time of year and make it a special family time for us. What I think is even harder for me to believe, is that my sweet boy is 6 years old today. Seriously, how is this possible?! He has grown so much over the past year and has no traces of a baby left to him. He is becoming such an amazing young man and continues to amaze me every day. I pray this year is extra special for him and that he always knows how much he is loved and cherished. I’m excited for him to have an extra special day and to celebrate with his party over the weekend.
So back to the apples. You guys, I had some high mama hopes and dreams of having these sweet first experience moments with my third little love for his first apple picking venture. The afternoon started out great with overcast skies and somewhat cooler temps. We needed to find a new farm to go to this year since we aren’t in the same area anymore. It was kind of bittersweet, because the one we used to go to, was the one we were going to ever since A was a baby. We decided to go to a farm that I used to visit when I was younger and I remember picking strawberries there. It was an ok spot for apples, but it just didn’t have that magical fall feeling like the years before. We might be on the hunt for another picking place next year.
We still made the best of it and got all the apples our big guys could get their hands on. They had a little competition going on with apple cider donuts at stake. The categories they decided on where, who could fill their basket first, and who could find the biggest apple. Of course each of them won in their own individual category to make it donut even. Although, A is onto us now. He told us, come on mommy and daddy, we can’t both win every time, what’s fair is fair. He does have a point. So next year, we might have to dust our judging shoulders off and hold them to the rules. I’m hoping for no meltdowns and we can use it as a learning lesson. We’ll talk again next year when all of that actually goes down.
The clouds ended up breaking and the sun was coming in and out which made it feel so much hotter. Here I am with a cute cardi on, the boys in flannels (it is tradition after all), and we are started melting. The boys wanted to rip their shirts off to cool down and snack on some apples for a bit. After that they decided in some wagon races and we were able to get a few half smiles out of the baby.
I thought I would capture some cute moments with my little guy who most of you know is usually a very happy baby. His smile is one of his trademarks, and it’s weird to see him when he’s not happy. Last year when we went apple picking he was still inside my belly, and with him being closer to a year, I kind of thought he would be all into it. Yeah, not so much. He was an all around crank pants that wanted little to do with the apples other than throwing them and kept a pretty steady stink face for most of the time. The boys would find him these really cute little apples to hold and he would look right at them and then thrown them down. Even when we tried to get his attention to reach up for a few on the trees, he decided the leaves were much more appealing (typical boy).
We let him sit down and play in the grass for a bit where he was occupied for a little while. I remember looking back at pictures of me as a baby and my parents had me sitting in an apple basket. Since the last few years we have gone picking the farms always gave us bags to put the apples in and not baskets. We figured we would try for a picture here, and well, you can see how that went. The funny thing is, I know these pictures will be great to look back on and laugh at when they’re all older.
Apple picking might not have gone how I thought it would, but it didn’t stop us from creating memories and having moments to look back on. The day did up getting even better. Surprisingly this farm did not have any pumpkins available. I’m not sure I’ve ever been apple picking and didn’t have the option for pumpkins, but that’s how it was here. He did have a farmer friend up the road that he was sending everyone over to for pumpkins, so we decided to check it out. We kind of had to at that point because the boys were so set on getting some pumpkins.
It was a huge farm that had a stand setup with all different pumpkins that were so reasonably priced. The owner also had some of his vintage tractors out and let the boys sit on them for pictures. After I took a few pictures of A for his birthday, the farmer came back over to us, and said, that he appreciated us spending time and getting pumpkins from him. He wanted us to follow his truck back out to the field and let us spend some time in the actual patch. He also told the boys they could pick another pumpkin. It was so nice of him! We had the whole enter thing to ourselves and the boys could not have been more excited to sit in the back bed of Eric’s truck while we were riding through the fields.
We went searching around for the best pumpkin to pick and decided on a white pumpkin that had lots of bumps on it because it made it look really cool. We also kept talking to the boys about how nice the farmer was to allow us to come back to his patch and how doing kind things for others can make someone else feel really special. Thank you farmer Jack for sharing your pumpkin patch with us!
