MOPS Pumpkin Patch Play Date

We had a great time meeting up with our local MOPS group at the Pumpkin Patch. The kids played for 2 solid hours. Hailey's favorite part was getting to pet the steer while he was eating.

Josiah joined in.

They have a really great maze built from straw bales. I liked it it except I don't know why they felt they needed to add some scary elements to it. Totally unnecessary! In fact it would be more fun without it. 

 The rest of the pics in this post were taken by a budding teenage photographer, Janie, who is in our homeschool group and also is the main babysitter for our MOPS group. I always love seeing what she comes up with. Gorgeous view of the mountains.

Josiah with his good friend, Mitch, as they listened to the story while sitting on straw bales and drinking apple cider.

Mitch's younger brother, Max, is Hailey's age. They are also listening to the story. Love this pic!

Janie snapped this pic of Hailey and I. It was my favorite pic of the day. In fact, I'm now using it as my Facebook profile pic. 

Each kid got to pick out a pumpkin. We do allow the kids to carve pumpkins, but only happy faces :o) Looking forward to the Hallelujah Party coming up this week. The kids will get to dress up in their non-scary costumes and go to a carnival at a local church.  As for the actual day of Halloween, we have turned it into a "Family Night" and the kids are just fine with it. This will be our second year of not celebrating Halloween. I was worried the kids would have a hard time adjusting, but we simply brought in new traditions and they are very happy with the change. They know we can find other ways to have fun without all the scary stuff that is contrary to what Scripture teaches. Some may view this as legalistic, but the more I read the Word, I believe Christians shouldn't compromise on this one. Why are we teaching our kids that it is fun to be "scared" when scripture tells us not to fear? It just doesn't make sense to me. O.K., I'll get off my soap box now. 

We are going to start working on getting our garden ready for winter today. Everything has been pulled up and thrown into the compost pile last week. Now we are going to add cardboard to the beds, then spread the compost on top of it. Maybe by next week the leaves will be falling and we'll be able to start putting a thick layer of leaves over the cardboard and compost to let it "work" over the winter.

Hope you all are having a wonderful fall. It has been absolutely beautiful so far. 

God Bless,

Jackie