i went to the pumpkin lot and all i got... {pumpkin "patch" 2015}

I don't typically post a lot of unhappy pictures. And as devastating as this one seems...

I promise she was smiling just minutes before and laughing her head off just seconds later.

Tatum was crying because I wouldn't let her go on the giant inflatable lion slide. I watched a mom staring at us while we wheeled the wagon out to the car. She was either thinking, "glad that's not me" or "what is wrong with that mom that that poor child is that upset?". I'd like to think it's the former and not the latter. I didn't care either way, but by the look on Tatum's face, you would have thought something terrible had happened. I guess in her world, it did. ;)

I told all 3 of them (Kieran did not want to go to the pumpkin lot and Erik was out of town), that we were going just for pumpkins and not for the rides. After a weekend of soccer and basketball games on both days back to back, a quick pitstop was all I had left.

All I could think of was Charlie Brown saying, "I went trick or treating and all I got was a bag of rocks."Tatum really wanted to go on that slide and I felt like she was thinking, "I went to the pumpkin lot and all I got was a pumpkin and a ride in a wagon."

Pumpkin lot, what's a pumpkin lot?

A dirt lot filled with haystacks and pumpkins placed on top.

And it's not that we haven't gone to this lot before, it's just that I love going with the whole family (when we visit my parents) to a REAL farm! 

You know, the ones where they have GIANT wooly cows with horns.

Or where the pumpkins are actually still on the ground where they were grown!

We go through the corn maze and on the slides there, too, but most of the time is spent searching for the pumpkins, eating lunch and enjoying the scenery and each other's company. It doesn't feel crowded because there is so much land and everyone is spread out.

No farm, no inflatable slides, just a picture with hay up Tatum's nose (she did that on purpose)...

 laughing because I asked her to take the hay out of her nose...

sticking her tongue out at me when I asked for a picture (that's karma because I used to and sometimes still do this to my mom)...

and fake smiling (Liam is cooperating and Anna has now followed suit with sticking out her tongue).

All in all they were grateful that they picked out their pumpkins, I'm grateful that I stuck to my guns and didn't give in to the travesty of not going on the lion slide,

  and next year we're going as a whole family back to the farm!