Life with Rupert: Ready. Set. Halloween!!

So I know that I've been saying "It feels like fall," "Almost Halloween," etc for what is probably the last two months, but let me share something with you...

One week from today is Halloween!

How in the holy hell did that happen?

I was under the impression that it was still September and I had LOADS of time to get the rest of my decorations out, go to the pumpkin patch, buy candy, figure out mine and Chris's costumes, cook yummy fall things, have a bonfire or two and everything other fall thing I love.

But alas, no.

I swear it was my mom's birthday (9/9) like yesterday.

So now, I have one week to cram in all of the activities listed above.

I must.

This is not optional.

These are like rituals for me.

It'd be like a devout Christian skipping Christmas.

Really.

Ugh.

For some reason not only has October flown by but I find I'm not in "the mood" as much as I usually am.

The first Halloween stores open and I'm there. Decorations are out IN September and I sit on my big ol' butt just waiting for Halloween.

This weekend we finally got around to going to the pumpkin patch.

*Side story: I bought a Groupon thing for admission to Cruze Farm for pumpkins/hayrides/etc. I googled it and it showed up 5-10 miles from my house. Awesome! GG, Chris, Aunt Linda, Rupert and I load into my car and head that way. We drove in circles for 30 minutes or so before going to the Cruze website to find out that it is in Kodak (so NOT Fountain City). So we ended up at Oakes Farm in Corryton, much closer.

We decided that Rupert is old enough this year to enjoy the "Back 40" so we bought admission to that, a hayride and one pumpkin.

The hayride and pumpkin patch were the same as last year but with one exception... Rupert couldn't decide on a pumpkin. It was like a life changing decision for the poor kid. To top it off, he kept picking up the pumpkins and dropping them while we are chasing him around telling him to stop picking them up and trying to coax him into liking one of the million pumpkins we picked out. (FYI: no pumpkins were harmed in the making of this story)

There's a good one!

Ucky, pumpkin guts

Here's one!

Nope, this one!

Found one!

This one!

Here's another!

Chris: Rupert, go back towards Mommy, she has a pumpkin for you!

Pumpkins!

This is the one.

Nope, it's this way!

Got one

Coming Mom!

Got one!

This one!

Big pumpkin!

Seriously, pick a pumpkin

This one?

Over here!

Dad! It's too "heaby" for me.

After a good 30 minutes, he chooses a pumpkin we picked. A good, classic, round, orange pumpkin.

Then we got back in line to go the main area and let him play in the Back 40.

The Back 40 is 40 acres of corn mazes, games and activites for kids.

There's a mini corn maze (which we did) and a regular corn maze (no thanks!), a Little Creatures enclosure with a llama, miniature horses, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs, a huge sandbox, some pretty wicked slides, bounce houses, steer roping (fake), and pedal go-karts.

It was a child's dream.

Rupert had a blast just in the sandbox, the slides were like icing on the cake for him!

My totally favorite part was watching the Pumpkin Pounder blast pumpkins from the huge air compressor towards a school bus like several miles away (exaggeration?).

My other favorite part, probably my favorite favorite, was following Rupert around the mini corn maze. We were the only ones in there and we let him be the leader. It was super precious. He was giving us all directions and making sure we were following him and keeping up. *He might turn out to be a control freak like momma after all*