Mitchell Farms

It's that time of year again when we make our annual trek out to the local pumpkin patch. This one happens to be a working farm where they grow their own pumpkins (as well as other vegetables, fruits, peanuts, etc.). They seem to expand their attractions (and raise their prices) each year we've been. This year was no exception and it was really crowded yesterday. Apparently word has gotten out about this place. Even the schools have gotten in the game, Lana's class is going on the 26th of this month.



Lana still wasn't walking very good yesterday before we went to the farm. I think she was more afraid that it was going to hurt if she walked on it because by the time we were ready to go home she was limping around without any assistance.



The first thing we did was hop on the tractor ride around the farm.


Lana was so glad our friends came with us.


On the farm they have these fabulous fields full of sunflowers. We usually stop to pick a couple on our way home.


Tanner has this slight grin on his face because of what he was looking at. (see next picture)


If you have ever seen Car's (which is Tanner's all time favorite movie), you might recognize this guy as Frank.


After the tractor ride we picked out our pumpkins.


I know, Tanner, it's a tough decision.


Green, White, Orange, Orange-ish/Green-ish....big, medium, or small?





This one looks like it is growing mold.


Good choice Tanner.



Lana on the tire horse swing.


Tanner playing trucks on one of the big piles of sand.


I swear when I first saw this dog I thought it was dead. There were 5 children gathered around him and pushing/petting him and he wasn't moving at all. I'd never seen a dog do that before. Rest assured he's not dead, I guess he's just gotten really good at deep sleeping.




There was this old guy with his grandkids at one of the rope swings. The granddad was watching the kids measly swings. He said "That's not how ya'll swing on a rope. Move over ya little whipper-snappers and let me show ya how it's done."


And he did.



Playing see-saw.



Tanner had a great time with all the push around toys they had. It took him a while to get going in the Flintstone car but once he finally figured it out, he loved it.






For some reason he really liked this old push/ride toy. He kept going in and out of the metal teepees.

All in all it was a fun day.

Happy Birthday Paul!

Happy #33! Lana has been talking about daddy's birthday all week. She drew him a ton of pictures during the week and set them aside to put in his birthday card. The kids wanted me to buy balloons this year but frankly I just ran out of time.

(Side story...on Thursday we went to a birthday party at a jump house where they have inflatable slides and jumping stuff. Well towards the end - thankfully - Lana jumped off one and hurt her foot. Badly enough that she couldn't walk. So we came home, I saw it swelling and put some ice on it. I didn't take her to school Friday because she couldn't walk so I had both kids home during the time when I planned to get all of Paul's birthday stuff together. Well, since Lana couldn't walk that meant I had to carry her everywhere or put her in the grocery cart and when Tanner saw Lana in the cart that meant he wanted in too. Then with the two kids in the cart that lead to whining, fighting and a gigantic headache for me so I had to limit my shopping stops. I was also on the hunt for a pumpkin pie which was Paul's birthday cake of choice and did you know that NO ONE has pumpkin pie right now?? I finally had to settle for a frozen Sara Lee one and bake it myself at home. Needless to say I didn't have time or patience to stop for balloons, so maybe next year. Also, Lana is limping around today so we think she either sprained her foot or bruised it. Doing much better today though.)



Anyway, the kids enjoyed watching Paul open his gifts and eat his favorite popcorn (from Target).



We then left the kids with a sitter and headed off to Crescent City Grill to enjoy a fabulous dinner without children. Afterwards we went to Dirt Cheap (surprised? I thought not.), stopped by McDonalds for an ice cream cone and picked up Iron Man 1 & 2 (in Blu-Ray of course...even though I had 3 free regular movie Red Box rentals). Happy Birthday Paul! We love you, Dirt Cheap and all!

Dirt Cheap Surprises

Sometimes I cringe when I answer the phone (and it's Paul) and hear the words, "Hey, guess what I got..." because sometimes, this is what comes home...



A pickup truck of junk.



And for the record, the Dirt Cheap Manager gave all this to Paul for free. He had also purchased a bunch of toys for $10 which are in the back of his truck cab. We actually did get our $10 worth out of that. What you can see in the truck bed are tents. Not good tents. Walmart tents. We ended up throwing them all away since we only had enough poles for 2 tents and even then we didn't have the elbow pieces. Not worth keeping. Then underneath the tents were 20 queen size air mattresses. So never fear, if you are sleeping at our house and your air mattress gets a hole in it, we've got 18 replacement mattresses in the garage. (Well, we only inflated 4 and 2 of those had holes.)

Hello. My name is Paul and I'm a Dirt Cheap-a-holic.