An Autumn Affair, Year two!

 What a beautiful morning at Hoen's Greenhouse!
(pronounced Hanes, like the underwear)

We attended the Autumn Affair last year for the first time, but this year was much more fun! I attribute it to Gavin being a year older and getting into everything this place has to offer. Not to mention that we had some good buddies join us! We had a BLAST with Sarah, Chase, and Brynn :)

Immediately after purchasing our tickets, we sat down to paint pumpkins. I learned last year, that if you paint the pumpkin first, it will be dry come time to leave. Also this year, they offered t-shirts for the kids to put on while painting. No, the paint is not washable. You might wonder why wouldn't they have washable paint for a kids pumpkin painting activity. Because then the paint would wash off the pumpkin, DUH!

So much for making a "pretty" pumpkin, if you're going to mix all the colors together first.

The colors might be muddled, but the focus was crystal clear.

Pouting because I asked him to take a picture by the big pumpkins before going in the straw maze.

Just kidding!

The straw maze was lots of fun this year. At first, Sarah and I let the boys take off alone.The entrance and the exit are about twenty feet apart, so we would see them when they came out. While you can see adult heads over the maze, you'll lose a toddler quickly when they sprint around every turn. After a scary moment when someone couldn't find his Mommy, we ALL went through together :)

Lead the way, boys!

 Whoops! Dead End!

 Let's try this way...

Another dead end!
We found them ALL before finding the exit. What fun!

Jumping off large pumpkins is also fun. ONCE. Then I had to tell him we don't climb on pumpkins. I didn't want to buy it.

After the maze we headed outside.
They were so CUTE together.

There wasn't a donkey this year. But this fella was nice and fluffy to look at! There were also goats, bunnies and furry chickens.

 And it wouldn't be an affair if there weren't pony rides!
You could choose your horse too! There were three different sizes to choose from. Chase picked the biggest.

Gavin picked the smallest.
Not sure if it was because it was the littlest guy, because he was white, or because he was the one closest to him that made his decision.

This was also the first time he rode alone.

My baby is riding a pony ALL. BY. HIMSELF!

And he LOVED it!
Afterwards he wanted to ride the BIG one. But we didn't make it back.

 The bounce houses took over their attention and it was all jumping and bouncing from there.

He tried the big slide, but he just couldn't quite get to the top. Sure wasn't for lack of trying though.
Maybe next year.

So this obstacle course became the favorite!
THREE times!

Heading back inside to get a balloon animal. They wanted one so badly on the way outside, but I didn't want to hold it while they rode and bounced. I also didn't want it to pop.

Yet I still ended up holding it while they played games.
(AND I popped it accidentally. Big time Mommy FAIL)

We need to work on the bowling concept.
Although the bowling ball WAS a soccer ball.

If you knocked at least one pin down you could pick a pack of stickers.
Ummm, can we say PERFECT!

An Indian corn ring toss for candy.

A soybean dig for more candy, as well as several other games.

There were two great photo opps, but unfortunately, neither worked for us today. This was the first one. The other was next to it and would have made an excellent fall picture. There were straw bales, corn stalks, flowers and pumpkins all set up with a backdrop and straw bale seat. Nice picture for sure, but not by ourselves, and not after running and playing and pushing nap-time. It was definitely time to head out. We spent over two hours there and still didn't get to do everything! Last year Gavin liked getting his face painted, but being it was pushing nap-time, I didn't encourage it. We would have had to go home and immediately take it off. Next year we will do that right after the pumpkin paining. Because this is definitely going to be an every year trip. It's fantastic. It's not crowded. It's completely created for kids. I'll say it again...It's FANTASTIC!
And I've never even walked through the Greenhouse side with the flowers and craft stuff!


We tried to get them to all look through at the same time.
We failed.
But it's OK, we had so much fun!  :)