A Day at the Patch

FYI: Clicking on the individual collages will enlarge the picture so you can see each photo in a larger scale. I forgot to share that information the first few times I used this feature.

We have been going to the same pumpkin patch every year since Grace was 13 months old (I would venture to say that the only reason we didn't go to this pumpkin patch her first year was because she was barely a month old at Halloween, and we had just moved to the Bay Area the previous month). Of course this year was no exception, and we were very excited to introduce Claira to the seemingly endless sea of orange pumpkins to be found at the patch. Saturday happened to be a beautiful day for picking pumpkins. We had so much fun and a bit of craziness as we let Claira sit amongst the pumpkins hoping to get the perfect picture of her experiencing this tradition for the first time ever! I came to the pumpkin patch with visions of Claira toddling around amongst the pumpkins and maybe even trying to pick one up. But it soon became apparent that my vision must have been pretty blurred. She seemed to care less about the pumpkins, but she was completely taken by pulling the grass and trying to eat it. While I think we got a couple of cute shots of each of the girls individually, taking a picture of the two of them together became something of a nightmare. As you can see from the pictures, Claira rarely looked at the camera, and Grace was so tired of smiling for photos that she has the teeth clenched, almost angry look on her face instead of a smile. It was still lots of fun, and in the end we found some nearly perfect pumpkins (I gave up and settled, which seemed to be the theme of the day with both the pictures and the pumpkins). In addition to sharing the memories made on Saturday, I thought it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane with some of our favorite pumpkin patch photos from years gone by. With the pumpkins picked, we can't wait to carve our porch sitters soon!

Last year we went to the pumpkin patch on the same day we found out that Claira was going to be joining our family. It made our visit last year extra special, and I remember Grace picked out a tiny pumpkin especially for her baby sister. Wow! to think that at this time last year, we didn't even know Claira was a possibility and now we can't imagine life without her. What a year it has been!