Pumpkin Patch!

We went to a fantastic pumpkin patch down in Reedley two weekends ago with a bunch of Hume friends. The kids had a great time walking along the paths through the old oaks on the farm, watching miniature trains, riding a real "choo choo train," playing on tractors, taking a hay ride, and of course, picking out pumpkins! It was such a fun fall Sunday activity! We followed the pumpkin patch with a trip to Bear Mountain Pizza for lunch on the way up the hill. We're looking forward to returning during the Christmas season when it becomes a Christmas tree farm -- they promised hot cocoa or cider along with the train ride for that season!
Above: top - Ryan and Jessie Minnasian, Jaron and Becky Ferreira; bottom -- Jen and Ellie Mae, Jen and Jade Tilley, Ellie Ferreira, Bunnie and Hannah Gerber, April and Peter Carey. The only person missing from the picture is Joel -- he bravely went with the group as the only dad (the others were all working), but still had a lot of fun with Ellie Mae! He'll probably do some heavy recruiting for the next trip!

The main path up to the trains from the entrance featured a fun suspension bridge. This was Ellie's first experience trying to walk on shaky ground. She and Ellie Ferreira did a great job of falling down together every few feet while smiling and laughing before they finally asked for help!

Friends! Ellie, Hannah and Ellie Mae on a journey together.

Ellie and Jade on the train together.

Ellie found a box of pumpkins her size and immediately took to the task of relocating them to a new pile. She is serious about her "jobs"!

Hay ride with Hannah! The hay wagons were pulled by a John Deere tractor.

Ellie decided to drive Ellie Mae and her baby brother Jaron "to Target"!

Ellie, Ellie Mae and Hannah

Ellie Mae's Great Auntie Pam would be proud -- a true farm girl driving tractors! (Aunt Pam has her own grape ranch and has given Ellie overalls and toy tractors to influence her farming side!)

Ellie was delighted to get a turn in the driver's seat!

Checking on her passengers!

Singing Trees and Big Sister Prep

Ellie has a singing Halloween tree that she loves to hear, but up until a week ago was still too afraid to push the on button herself and would watch from a safe distance of 5-10 feet away. In the course of the last week, she has not only become comfortable enough with the tree to turn it on by herself, but she has taken to caring for the tree. She tries to feed it and give it "tea" from her kitchen set. Yesterday, she came in to tell us that the tree had "poopies"..."yucky poopies!" We thought that was pretty funny. Then, a few minutes later, we found Ellie on the floor in her room surrounded by her wipes warmer that she had taken down from the shelf for the occasion and several discarded wipes that she had clearly pulled out, and using another wipe to clean the tree's "poopies"! The tree is dark brown, so we can only imagine her need to use so many wipes to try to clean it. :) You can see her holding the tree down in this picture.

















After she finished cleaning the tree's "poopies," Ellie brought two diapers out of her room and wanted Papa to help her put one on the tree. She's taking care of the tree in these pictures! Grammy Gayle thinks that Ellie is getting ready to be a big sister to the new baby brother due in February! I had been waiting to give Ellie her first baby doll until the baby arrives so that it would be a special gift to mark the transition, but after seeing that our poor daughter had to resort to being a "mommy" of a singing tree, I promptly jumped online and a real dolly should be arriving by the end of the week! Hopefully she'll be this caring with the real baby when he arrives!