Apples and Pumpkins

Apple, pumpkins and mud; the start of fall! Today was the perfect day to go apple and pumpkin picking. Jacob and I had planned to go apple picking this fall and just realized that apple season is pretty much over in Missouri.  We packed up Alethea and headed to Eckerts farm about 45 minutes away in Illinois.  Jacob and I have been apple picking before and have also dreamed of taking our children to do the same thing. It was a dream come true to take Alethea apple picking, and she LOVED it!!  She slept the entire way there, so she was happy as could be when we finally arrived at our destination (after the detours we took).  Jacob then strapped on the ergo and off we went to pick apples.

Our first destination was Eckerts county store, boy did it smell good! There were so many home made baked goods and fresh produce. We browsed the pies, cookies, and pastries, our mouths watering as we made our way to the tractor. Alethea got to experience her first tractor ride and first trip to a farm. She wasn't too interested in the tractor on our ride out (we were stuck in the back of the wagon) to the apples, and instead ate her lunch.  Due to the hail storms, a lot of the apples were on the ground or had brown "healing" skin on them. Lukcy for us, Jacob is tall and could reach the good apples on the tops of the trees. Alethea loved holding the apples, feeling the apple tree leaves and even picked her own apple; which she held onto the entire way back. 

On the way back we sat at the very front of the wagon, right behind the tractor. They had the top seats elevated another step up so you were not riding directly behind the wheels but instead a little above them.  This time Alethea was able to see the tractor and sat watching it the entire time while holding her apple in her hand. We got back to the parking lot and decided that we would go pick pumpkins instead of visiting the goats. We got in another line and waited for a tractor to take us to the pumpkin patch! This was just as exciting for me as it was for Alethea since I have never been to a pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins. We allowed Alethea to walk around the pumpkin patch and play with the pumpkins. She LOVED it! It was super muddy so she wasn't allowed to sit in the actual pumpkin patch, but that didn't stop her from (trying)

banging on the pumpkins. After we found the perfect pumpkins, we sat Alethea on the grass (by the tractor stop) and let her play away. She has a lot of fun playing with the pumpkins and just getting to sit in the grass surrounded from nature. (this is a rare occurance for her since we live in the city)

We had such a great time outside picking apples and pumpkins! Such a great time in fact that I think we are going to go to a different farm and do a corn maze later this month.  (on a side note, corn mazes aren't big here as they were in Michigan, we only found 1 maze within 2 hours of our house)