Spiderman's a Poopin'

When you're a mommy, sometimes you do things that you'd never thought you'd do.

One of those things for me was making up song parodies for my children.

With two younger boys, bathroom humor is hilarious, so should I be surprised that I rewrote Winter Wonderland to Spiderman's a Poopin'? No, not really. After all, they love Jingle Bells, Batman Smells.

A New Baby Changes Everything- A Letter of Encouragement

A friend of ours just became a first time daddy, last night.

He and his wife are so excited, as they should be, but they are unaware that things will change from now on

Maybe they're starting to realize it, maybe they aren't.

You see, when a new baby comes, the world looks at you differently.

You're no longer Martha or Joe. Now you're mom and dad.

Signs That Your Child Might Have ADHD

Having a child with ADHD has become more recognized in the last few years, but still seems to have negative connotations around it.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, doesn't have to have the negative impact that it has. In fact, getting a diagnosis for my son had changed our lives for the better because my husband and I were able to understand what my son was going through and were able to make a game plan.

12 Gifts Ideas That Mom Won't Hate

Disclaimer- this post contains Amazon Affiliate links which means that if you purchase one of the items below from the link, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

Finding the Perfect Gift

Christmas is coming and sometimes finding the perfect gift for mom can be hard and mom may end up left out on receiving gifts. We want to get her something that she likes, but we don't always know what to get her.

It happens, ya know. Mom has usually been in charge of getting all of the gifts and stocking stuffers, but sometimes we forget about mom. In some households, mom might not even receive anything except for that one gift that your child's teacher had the whole class do together in a chaotic crafting event.

The Beginner's Bible

Disclaimer- I received this Bible in exchange for an honest review. Although I was asked to review this product, all reviews are my honest opinion and I was not told what to write.

My mom didn't take us to church when I was growing up, but she still said goodnight prayers with us when she remembered. At the time, those goodnight prayers were my first pictures of what Jesus was like.

A Mom's Morning Mayhem

Disclaimer- This post may contain affiliate links which means that should you purchase something from one of them, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. 

Every morning, the alarm on my husband's phone starts to go off at 7:00AM and a minute later, my own 7:00 AM alarm goes off. Our phones must be a minute apart. I sigh as I roll over to turn it off.
My husband's is still going.

Once my husband gets into the bathroom, going to the bathroom will have to wait for another fifteen minutes, so I roll out of bed and head to the bathroom to relieve myself, wash my hands, and then wake the kids up, telling them that if they don't get up and go now, they'll have to hold their bladder until later.

A New Camera Changed Our Picture Game

Disclaimer- This post contains affiliate links which means if you purchase something on here, at no extra cost you, I may earn a small commission. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

One of the things that I have always loved doing with my family has been getting my kids' pictures
 taken each year.

When my first child was born, I took him to our local Walmart picture studio for every month of his first year... except for that one month because I was mad about how that previous month went.

Let Mom Experience the Holidays, Too!

As an adult, I have this new respect for my mom and my grandma who worked in the kitchen the whole day on Thanksgiving and even on Christmas to make sure that everyone had a favorite dish to eat on Thanksgiving. For one thing, food is EXPENSIVE and for another thing, it can take a long time to make those dishes.

Now that I'm hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, I realize how time consuming it really is. I felt that I missed most of the Christmas cheer and celebration, last year, so this year, I vowed that it wouldn't happen again.

The Wild Kratts Live 2.0- A Paw-some Review

Disclaimer- This post contains affiliate links. Any purchases you make can earn me a small commission at no extra cost for you. Although I coincidentally won some free tickets to this show, I was not paid or sponsored to write this post. All opinions are my own. 

With Thanksgiving approaching, I wanted to share with everyone something that happened to me that I was really Thankful for.

I got this wonderful opportunity and won some tickets to go see the Wild Kratts Live 2.0. I'd like to give a shout out to my friend Jessica, because without her, I wouldn't have seen the link to enter the give-a-way- Thank you Jessica!

Thanksgiving Shopping List

With Thanksgiving around the corner, I made you a list that you can download and print for free for easy to make Thanksgiving side dishes. To see the recipes and instructions, you can visit this blog post about How to Have An EASY Thanksgiving With 7 Easy-to-Make Side Dishes. For the free printable click here. 

How to Have an EASY Thanksgiving With 7 Easy-to-Make Side Dishes

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday (political things put aside) to celebrate each year with your family and friends. When I was younger, we would all go over to my Grandma's and we'd eat until we were too stuffed to move.

Now, as an adult with my own home and dining room, I like to host my own Thanksgiving dinner. The very first year we were in our home, we invited my husband's and my side of the family to come celebrate with us. I don't remember the number for sure, but I think we had 18 people to feed. We had our long dining room table and added a long folding table at the end and we fit snuggly, but we still fit!

We haven't had as many people come since that first one, but we still have a pretty big turn out and with that comes a lot of food and each person has that one special thing that they like to eat for Thanksgiving.

As a parent with young kids, hosting Thanksgiving can be a bit chaotic, but bringing your kids to another person's house can give you more anxiety than hosting Thanksgiving dinner, so I just choose to host it.

So how do you make it work for you? If you are hosting a multi-family Thanksgiving, cooking can be expensive and overwhelming. This is what we do in our family.

POTLUCK Style!!!

Usually, my mother-in-law will make the turkey, and I will make a ham. From there, we make a list of the dishes that we would like to have and we divide the list in half- or if there are more people joining us, we ask them the chip in by bringing a dish or two to pass.

If this appeals to you or if you are just looking for dishes to make even though you are cooking for your family by yourself, here's a list of our easy-to-make dishes that never seem to fail us.

You're going to notice a trend and that trend is, if it isn't easy to make, it's not making this list. 

Breakfast Pizza- What some people forget when it comes to big holidays is that we still need to eat earlier on in the day unless you're going to eat everything around noon, but we usually do our Thanksgiving dinner around 4 or 5 in the afternoon because some of our loved ones still work that day. An easy way to feed everyone is to make this Breakfast Pizza. It's super delicious and very easy to make. 

Click Breakfast Pizza for recipe. 

Green Stuff- Ok, the name sounds really weird and it's not very descriptive, but growing up, my grandma made this Jello salad (made with cottage cheese and Jello) that was absolutely delicious. It's not quite a dessert so we sometimes ate it with the food or we sometimes saved it for dessert time. This is a dish that you can and SHOULD make the night before so it has time to set. 

Click Green Stuff for recipe. 

It's super easy to make and you can make it several ways. For instance, in the pictures, I made it with strawberry jello instead of lime. 

Strawberry Jello Graham Cracker Surprise-  Since we just introduced a dish that should be made the night before, here is another one. 

This dish was a complete accident when I came up with it, but the accident turned into a marvelous creation. If you like Jello Pretzel dessert, you'll probably like this too. With everything blended together, it gives a rich, smooth taste with your favorite jello taste and the fruits added make it somewhat healthyish, right?

It's not a pie or a sea foam salad, but it's still absolutely delicious and easy to pass around your table.

Click Strawberry Jello Graham Cracker Surprise for the recipe

Corn Bread Casserole- With very few ingredients and even fewer instructions, this is the perfect side dish to add to your Thanksgiving meal. Cornbread is such a great comfort food and having it mixed with these other ingredients, your taste buds will be sure to love you. 

Click Cornbread Casserole for recipe. 

Green Bean Casserole-  This dish is probably my favorite in the side dish category. The dessert category is a whole 'nother thing. Before I moved on my own, my mom always made this casserole and I always thought that it must have been really difficult to make since it tasted so good. I was completely wrong. I kind of feel like maybe my mom had this smart idea to make cooking seem hard so that we felt thankful for her and to show our gratitude, we did the dishes. Who am I kidding, the dish washer did that for us. 

Click Green Bean Casserole for recipe

Candied Sweet Potatoes-  As long as I can remember, I have always loved sweet potatoes. My mom, who didn't cook often, would make this dish every Thanksgiving meal and if it didn't get made, I protested. 

Sweet potatoes, which are already sweet, hence the name, become even sweeter with this recipe. The ooey, gooey marshmallows add a great flavor and texture and the pecans can be optional- When I make it, I add them to one side so those who don't like the nutty flavor and texture can enjoy the potatoes without them. 

Click Candied Sweet Potatoes for the recipe.

Garlic Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes-  When I asked my brothers-in-law what side dish they wanted and had to have for Thanksgiving, mashed potatoes was the number one answer. Although I leave my mother-in-law in charge of potatoes and she makes hers a little differently, you still can't go wrong with this recipe. 

Click Garlic Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes for recipe. 

Conclusion

There are SOOOO many more dishes that you can make for Thanksgiving, but this is the easy list. Everything else that gets made for our family goes up in difficulty and I leave those dishes to my mother-in-law because she has the recipe and if it isn't easy, I don't want to make it. 

Thanksgiving is a time to feel thankful and I know that for me, it's hard to get into that mindset when I spend the whole day in the kitchen while the rest of the family is somewhere else in the house. 

You can prepare many of these dishes the night before and warm them up in the oven usually about a 30-45 minutes before the meal is to start. 

Just remember, that when making these dishes, make sure that you have time to prepare them and also have fun with your family.

Because these are so easy, don't stress out and enjoy the day.

If you want desserts, order a pie or something else that is already pre-made and only needs to sit on the counter to thaw.

Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful and to be with family. If you're too stressed out, you're doing it wrong, so do it right. Enlist some help! Have your kids set the table. Include them so that the feel responsible and like they had a part in making this celebration. 

Most importantly, Have FUN!!!!!

Also, because I'm so grateful for every single one of you, I've made this FREE Thanksgiving checklist just for you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Garlic Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes is definitely one of those dishes that is considered a comfort food. You can't even go to KFC or Popeye's without being asked if you'd like some mashed potatoes with that and that's fine with me.

I love mashed potatoes, but unfortunately for me, my husband and kids don't like them, so Thanksgiving is the only time I get to really have them unless we've gone out to a restaurant and I can get my own single serve side of them. It's really a sad thing, but it makes Thanksgiving that much better.

Related- Things I had to Give Up When I Became a Family

If you really want to go easy, I suggest you find yourself a good, flavorful box of instant mashed potatoes, but if you want the real deal, here's a recipe just for you!

Ingredients

More pictures to come

• 3 pounds of brown potatoes- peeled
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 cup of sour cream
• 2 tbs of garlic salt

Instructions

• Grab a big large pot of water and boil it.
• Peel and dice potatoes- it's easier to cook all the way if cut into smaller pieces.
• Carefully add potatoes to the large pot of water and boil for 15 minutes or until potato is tender. 
• Once tender, drain potatoes and place back into the pan.
• Mash potatoes with a masher or a hand mixer. 
• Melt butter and add to the potatoes with remaining ingredients. 
• Blend well, transfer to a nicer dish, and serve

If potatoes are clumpy and dry, add a little more milk until smooth and creamy. Not too much or the potatoes will be runny.

What's your favorite side dish?

Candied Sweet Potatoes

I said before that green bean casserole was my favorite Thanksgiving dish, but that has to be a lie because I absolutely love Candied Sweet Potatoes. Perhaps they can tie, although, I really do love me some regular mashed potatoes.

Since sweet potatoes are already sweet, there really isn't a need to doctor them up, but when you make it this way, it just really enhances the flavor. It takes a regular side dish and makes it into a dessert and really, who doesn't love dessert. (Keep your hands down you naysayer!)

My motto for Thanksgiving is "If it isn't easy, I'm not making it" and this is certainly, a very easy dish to make.

Ingredients

• 4 16oz cans of sweet potatoes (drained)
• 1 1/2 cups margarine or 2 1/2 sticks butter
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 3 cups of marshmallow

Better pictures to come

Instructions

• In microwave safe bowl, melt butter then mix with brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add 2 cups marshmallows, stir. 
• Pour mixture over the sweet potatoes. If you wish for smaller bites, you can mash them, but I usually don't and bake for 20 minutes. 
• Carefully pull sweet potatoes out of the oven and sprinkle remaining marshmallows over it and put back in the oven for an additional 5-7 minutes or until marshmallows begin to turn golden. 

Pull out and wait a few minutes before serving. It's super easy and delicious!

Have you tried your sweet potatoes, this way? Did you love it or was it just not for you?

Breakfast Pizza

I grew up in the Northwest part of Illinois where I was lucky enough to learn of this magnificent thing called a breakfast pizza. Since moving to the Eastern part of Illinois, there aren't really any Casey's (the gas station who introduced me to it) around here, I've missed out on ordering something truly magnificent.

I've had to learn to make some of my favorite dishes since moving here four years ago, and breakfast pizza was one of those things that I had to try for myself.

Since I already make my own homemade pizza (thanks pa-in-law for teaching me!), I started out with making my own dough. Since I've had kids, it isn't always practical doing that, so I've had to improvise from time to time if I want to make something really quick instead of waiting for the pizza crust to rise only to beat it and wait for it to rise again and a great alternative is actually the frozen/refrigerated dough in the biscuit aisle at the nearest store.

Ingredients

• 1 refrigerated pizza crust
• Jimmy Dean Sausage
• Green Pepper
• Mushrooms
• 2 eggs
• 4 tsp milk
• 1-2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese. 

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 425
• Spray a pizza pan with cooking spray
• Unroll pizza crust onto pan. Stretch it as much as you can over the pan without ripping it. Fold over edges to create a crust barrier.
• Place small sausage dobs strategically on pizza. If you're going to use green pepper, cut into small slices and place as much as you want throughout. Do the same for mushrooms. If you wish to add bacon, I cooked mine and then crumbled it over the pizza.
• Crack the 2 eggs into a small container, add the milk and beat them until they are pretty well mixed. Pour egg concoction over the pizza.
• Add the amount of cheese that makes you feel happy.
• Place in oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until cheese begins to brown. It always takes less time in my oven, so you may want to check it around 10 minutes. 
• Enjoy!

This pizza is really great for those nights when you kind of want pizza, but also kind of want breakfast. It's also great for the holidays when you're looking for something easy to make for breakfast, but don't want to fill up too much before you have your big feast. 

So whether you have left over ingredients from an omelet that you don't want to spend the time carefully making or if you are just looking for something different than cereal or pancakes, try breakfast pizza!

Strawberry Jello Graham Cracker Surprise

This recipe was an accident that turned into something quite amazing. Has that every happened to you? I actually haven't thought of a clever name for it yet, so I'm totally up for suggestions.

Have you ever had that Jello Pretzel dessert that's pretty common at potlucks? The reason why it's so popular is because it's AMAZING and super easy to make.

This is how this Jello surprise came about. I wanted to make the Jello Pretzel dessert as a side dish for Thanksgiving two years ago, but I forgot to buy pretzels and didn't want to go out late at night to buy just one thing. Instead, I decided that I could make a graham cracker crust and it would be just as tasty, right?

Well, it was very tasty, but also very different! When I poured the Jello onto my crust, I forgot to have the jello set a little and the crust and the Jello mixed together. It was different from what I expected and I was upset, but it ended up becoming a great hit.

So they next year, I decided to try it again to see if it was a fluke. I mixed all of the ingredients together and cooled it off and the texture was pretty darn good and it has actually ended up being one of my husband's favorite dishes. If you've ever had a sea foam salad, the texture is a little similar, but the taste is amazing!

Ingredients

• 2 packages of crushed graham crackers. (I always crush my own from a box with rolling pin)
• 2 3oz packages strawberry jello.
• 1 8oz cream cheese
• 1 8oz tub of cool whip
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups frozen strawberries

Instructions

• In a mixer, mix together cream cheese, cool whip and sugar. Set aside. 
• Crush graham crackers. 
• Boil 2 cups of water and then mix in Jello. Once Jello is mixed, add a cup of cool water and stir. 
• Carefully mix all ingredients except strawberries together with a mixing spoon until smooth. Fold in strawberries. 
• Refrigerate until jello has set. Make this the night before in order to ensure this has time to set.

This is a very versatile dish. I've made it with cherry jello and cherries, but my husband's favorite is the strawberry. 

What do you think? Is this something that you think you'd make? Do you have any interesting names to give this?

Green Bean Casserole

Green Bean Casserole is probably the most known Thanksgiving dish. I remember when I had cable (probably when I still lived with my parents) seeing the Campbell's commercials with the winter scene and this family has made the green bean casserole that is perfectly paired with French's french onion chips. I want to say there is a little snowman outside looking in and when he comes in, he eats a bite and turns into a little boy- ok, I actually think that's for an actual soup commercial.

What I'm trying to say is that green bean casserole is a great comfort food and would be an obvious choice to make along side a turkey or ham for Thanksgiving and Christmas- even Easter!

The best part about it is that it's so easy!

I made some, last night, and paired it with a Tuscan pasta and garlic bread. I made a smaller batch than I do with the holidays and since I was short on time, I put it into the microwave to save time. Surprisingly, it came out alright. I did bake it in the oven for 7 minutes to make the french onion chips crispy, but if you're short on time, you could do the same.

Ingredients

3 14.5 oz cans of cut green beans, drained
1 10.5 can of cream of mushroom condensed soup
3/4 cup milk
1.5 cups of french fried onion chips.

Just double for large groups

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Combine all of the ingredients except the french onion chips. Place in a medium casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes. If you have a smaller dish that it fits in the microwave and you're short on time, you can place it in there and sensor reheat.
3. Remove from oven and carefully stir.
4. Sprinkle french onion chips on top of the casserole so it evenly covers the mixture and bake for 5 extra minutes.

Voila! You will have a delicious dish in a short amount of time! The hardest part about this dish is making sure it makes it all around the table. It's great to reheat too, IF you have extra's the next day.

The Day My Faith Was Questioned

A few days ago, I felt like my faith in God was being tested, but I realized that it wasn't being tested so much as others were questioning it.

Christianity is a touchy subject. Although there are rights and wrongs regarding it, there are many who believe that the rules all changed when Jesus died for us on the cross, while others still hold firm to the Old Testament.

Halloween Traditions- A Shot of Rum for the Parents?

   

 The town that I live in does trick-or-treating for the kids the Sunday before or of Halloween, each year. Part of the reason is for safety since it's been getting darker, sooner and the other reason is so it's scheduled the same time every year.

      Unfortunately, that means that if the day of Halloween is in the middle or end of the week, it seems we are way ahead of all of the other families that I know and it's also kind of a let down for the rest of the month and it might as well just be November.

   




Halloween is my holiday. I don't go out and worship the devil or anything like that, but I LOVE to dress up. Growing up, I always wanted to be an actress and even acted a little in college for a drama group called Omega, so I really like to dress up and get into character. This year I was a vampire, the year before that, I was a granny.

      So, I love to go trick-or-treating with my kids and they enjoy having a crazy mommy taking them next door... soon, that will change. They'll be too embarrassed and ask me to stop, but until that time, I'm gonna dress up. 

      This year, we experienced something that never happened before. We had gone to a few houses on blocks that we hadn't been to before and it was really quite a let down. Houses had porch lights on, but they weren't opening their doors for us.  (For us, or at least when I was younger and growing up in a different town, a light on meant you had candy. It seems like if you have candy here, you're going to leave your door open or hang around outside.)

      After deciding to head back onto the road that we know does hand out some treats, my kids did their normal thing: "Trick-or-treat! Thank you!" but then we heard a twist. "Hey mom and grandma! They have a treat for you too!"

     I was like, "Oh really? Well thank you!" I headed up the stairs expecting a Snickers or something, but the guy gestures to some drinks with little shot glasses. He was offering us some pumpkin spice rum and vodka or something like that. I was so surprised. I thanked him and turned him down politely because, well, who hands our alcohol to parents?

     Apparently, this is something that people in Arizona do for parents and its not just a random person, it's like almost all of the houses. My bro-in-law who lives there was telling us all about it. 

     So this is an entirely new concept, something I had never heard of, but it makes sense that different places do different things for holidays. 

What traditions do you do? Are there a little rituals that you do differently? My husband's grandpa told me about what Halloween was like for him as a kid. Back then, they trick-or-treated the whole week of Halloween and if they didn't get treats, they really did do tricks. Apparently, the people of Arizona hand out alcohol. If someone could hand out cheesecakes and puppies, I might just move there.

Corn Bread Casserole

The holidays are near and even if they aren't at this time, people still enjoy comfort food that's easy to make. Corn Bread Casserole can really be made any time of the year whether you're eating chili, sausage and potatoes, or you just feel like eating something with corn bread.

Since it's so easy to make and you can make it with ingredients that you most likely already have, this is the perfect dish to take to a potluck or to eat at Thanksgiving time.

Everything pictured are just the ingredients I already had on hand. I am
not making any money by promoting, I probably just got them on a good sale.

Ingredients

1 Box of Corn Bread mix- I used Jiffy
1 cup sour cream
1 can of creamed corn
1 can of regular canned corn (drained)
1 stick of butter or a half cup

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350.
Melt the butter in microwave.
In an oven safe casserole dish, mix all ingredients together. Stir well.
Pop into the oven for 40 minutes or until top is starting to brown.

For, what I hope are obvious reasons, don't eat until the casserole has cooled down and isn't mouth blistering hot. A nice warm will do fine.

Easy Peasy! It's ridiculous how easy it is to make this dish and it's sure to be a hit!

Green Stuff-Jello Salad

Several months ago, I was trying out the macro diet, which was something I had only just learned about the week I started doing it. Long story short, the macro diet consists of trying to reach your daily fat, fiber, carb and protein intake. I was easily getting in my carbs and fats, but was having a difficult time reaching my protein goals.

One day I looked up foods with high protein and found out that cottage cheese was one of them. I like cottage cheese alright, but I was having a difficult time eating it plain. I was glad when I remembered something that my grandma always makes for Thanksgiving that I absolutely loved. Green stuff!

What exactly is Green Stuff, you ask? I'm not really sure what the official name of it is, we've just always called it Green Stuff, but it's kind of like a Sea Foam salad, but much easier to make. For this recipe, we usually use lime Jello and add canned pears or pineapple, but today, I've changed the recipe up a bit in the pictures. 

Ingredients:

1 24 oz container of cottage cheese

1 8 oz container of whipped topping (It has to be from a tub or it won't set right.)

1 3oz packet of lime flavored gelatin

1 can crushed pineapples or pears (drained)(optional)

1/2 cup of crushed pecans or walnuts (optional)

Instructions:

Mix container of cottage cheese with flavored geletin until.

Once mixed, fold in whipped topping.

Mix in fruit and nuts.

You can either eat it as is or put it into the fridge for it to solidify and then serve that way.

This recipe is so versatile, too. For the pictures, I used strawberry jello, pecans, and sliced strawberries. You can make your jello salad with any flavor and still find a good combination.

So what do you think? Is this something that you think you'd want to try? I know that it seems weird, especially since it's a sweet dessert with cottage cheese, but many good desserts and salads are made with cream cheese and really, the only difference is that the cottage cheese is in curds instead of blended smoothly.

A Visit to the Pumpkin Farm

Going to the pumpkin patch is different than it had ever been when I was a kid. For starters, there seems to be more to do than just search through pumpkins and go through the tiny haunted house. 

In order for a pumpkin patch or farm to be successful, visitors demanded that there be more to do. In a sense it is practical and also a shame. The extra things bring more people in, but it has also raised the prices of things that were fun to just do. (However, people have to make a living and a pumpkin farm is only open during this season.)

Last weekend, my family and I went to Jerry Smith's Pumpkin farm in Kenosha, WI. As a tradition, we met up with some family friends and we all had a great time exploring the different things that the farm had to offer. 

We took some pictures while waiting for our friends to meet us. My phone storage wasn't so happy with me because there were plenty of photo opportunities.

Finally! A picture where the wind hadn't completely blown the hair in my daughter's face.

You even get to see some very interesting things when you do some local activities... This guy came riding in on a motorcycle and had on a double raccoon hat. I wish I would have had the courage to ask him if I could get a close up. I was very amused by the two tails.

Once our friends arrived, we were able to go into the pumpkin farm area. This part of the farm is no charge, and it's probably our favorite part. You'll see why.

Free Attractions

The farm takes the time to create little scenes from different movies! They find pumpkins and gourds and paint faces on them. 

The sun was too bright to get a good picture. ☹️

 

This child thinks he's funny.... Just like his mama!

This goes on for rows and rows. This year, however, my kids finally got to know why I appreciate this next showcase so much because they finally got to watch the movie for themselves.

After you see the pictures up front, there is a tunnel you get to go through. Normally the outside of the tunnel spins around like you're going through the "twister", but it wasn't working that day. My kids always thought it was cool, but now they understand why it's there and appreciate it so much more.  Ignore my voice, I'm aware of how annoying I sound, now. 

When you exit out of the tunnel, you land on the "Yellow Brick Road."

After this, we looked at the remaining showcases and enjoyed it when we saw that some characters just did not belong in that one. One of our friends suggested that perhaps there was a seek and find.

I said, "I may be wrong about this, but were there bunnies in Mickey Mouse?" There was a Scrat (the squirrel) from Ice Age in another scene and he didn't belong there either. 

There was a Maui, last year, but I think they had to fix him. Imagine how big his pumpkin would need to be if they scaled it to size. 

Any pumpkin that you saw was up for sale.... except those on the showcases. 

Money Attractions

After all of this, which there was a lot to look at, we now had to pay to get in to see the rest. Before, it had been you paid as you wanted to do it, but now, they have sectioned it off so all you would have to do is buy a wristband. During the week, the wristbands were $5 per person and then $10 per person on the weekend. Guess which day we visited.

Our friend snuck away and bought us wristbands when we thought he was off to the bathroom. Thank you!!! So we made it inside.

This doesn't look like much in the picture, but this was a big sand hill. I was glad that the sand was damp that day because it usually isn't and that means that one or all of my children run to me complaining about the sand that landed in their eye. I was so glad that it did not do that, especially on this very windy day. 

The sand moved throughout the play area. It was fun watching the kids move the dump trucks.

Typically, the things above, used to be a part of the free things. The pictures below are things that we used to have to pay several tickets to do, but were free with the wristbands so the kids could play with them with unlimited turns.

We still had to pay to ride the ponies and even the camel (not pictured) but that's ok. The kids weren't interested anyway.

 These were the hale bales of death. If you didn't watch where you were going, you were going to be jumped on by another kid. I tried to trail my four year old while my husband trailed our six year old daughter. She's more timid and that could get her run over. We would generally have to pay to go in here too, but this was free.

Our friend's wedding ring fell off in this maze. It was literally like looking for a needle in a hay stack. Luckily, she knew the general area it fell off and we found it without too much fuss. It was still a scary thing, but we were able to get the kids from jumping across in that area and some other moms came to help her look for it. It was found within minutes. 

Who needs a swing when you have a random long  tube? There were kids actually crawling inside; mine included.

Attractions Not Pictured

The farm offered many more things, but at this point, my phone had died and I couldn't take anymore pictures. This is also what they offered.

Petting zoo- We didn't go in because we had been there for two hours already and my kids were getting grumpy and cold. The petting zoo offers the normal animals that you would see as well as some exotic birds (I think. They used to, but I don't know if they did this time.) This was another thing that used to cost money, but was free with a wristband. 

Corn Maze- Usually, the farm offers this, but I didn't see it this time around, but I also wasn't looking for it either. There was a big line off to the side, I bet that was it.

Hay Rack Ride

Band Stand- There was a tent area set up for some music and even children's sing-a-longs. 

A Jump Pad- This is like a giant trampoline. I really don't know if there is a limit to how many kids go on this thing, but it's like a long, flat, trampoline with a yoga ball feel. Very weird.

Haunted House- The haunted house is a smaller size one, but it's still pretty good. There is an age limit to who can go in, so that's good. It must be a little bit scary for that to happen.

FOOD- One of the best things about going to a pumpkin farm is the food. This is the time of year where apple cider donuts and pumpkin bars are a staple snack item. This farm has several places to buy these different types of foods including fudge, cookies, apple cider, churros, apple butters, jams, and much more!!!!

Conclusion

There are so many different things that you can do at a pumpkin farm. Jerry Smith's offers this and so much more. If you get the chance to visit one, it doesn't have to be this one because I know you all don't live here, go!

While the wristbands seemed expensive to pay at the time, when we thought about it, we would have paid that, plus more for our kids to do some of the things they did, so it made it worth it in the end.

You get the chance to get some fresh air, exercise, and you get the joy of your kids getting worn out and sleeping nice, that night.

It's not too late to go. Halloween has yet to come and if you're looking for a good, family fun, fall activity, head to your nearest pumpkin farm or apple orchard!