Fall Fun With Grandparents...

Frankenmuth Scarecrow Festival - Anna with the Pumpkin Catapult, Ben with the Granny Scarecrow.

Johnson's Pumpkin Farm - Ben-Ben's little hatted head lost in the mini maze (soybean field).

Anna and Gram Melissa leading us through the maze. (We were going to do the big, corn maze, but timing, and the coldness factor affected our decision.)

There were so many fun hay characters that the kids loved to see. Benjamin was especially obsessed with this Elmo. Anna loved looking at the animals and finding things to feed them.

Reading Time - Grandpa Chuck and Gram Melissa had plenty of opportunities to read stories to the kids. The kids loved it.

As a family, we've been doing many typical autumn activities lately - apple orchard, pumpkin patch, nature walks, leaf collecting, cooking soups, baking pumpkin bread, tomorrow we decorate our pumpkins for family night. I love the season. This weekend Ethan's parents came to visit and we did one fall activity I've never done before - a corn maze. Well, we almost did. We actually did the kiddie soy bean maze. (Ethan wants to know how I grew up in Indiana without ever going to a corn maze, and I'm not sure.)

It was a great weekend. We went to the children's museum, Cracker Barrel (that has become quite the tradition when either set of grandparents visit...mostly because of Ethan and Anna's obsession. :) We also went up to Frankenmuth to look through some shops and experience the scarecrow fest. We just missed the pet costume parade, but still saw many of the dressed up doggies walking around...Anna loved it.

And finally, Johnson's Pumpkin Farm. So fun; so many entertaining things for all ages. We were getting ready to head out a little after 7pm, when for the first time in my life, I locked our keys in the car. Oops. It could have been worse, but luckily, Chuck has AAA and they were there within a half hour to let us in. Whew! Plus there were fresh, warm pumpkin doughnuts to snack on, a blazing fire, live music, and fun stuff for the kids....so we survived. It was pretty cold once the sun went down, but quite the adventure...that, and trying to find our way home. Good memories. By the end of Chuck and Melissa's visit Benjamin had finally stopped calling Chuck 'DewEE' and started calling him paPA (for grandpa). I believe he thought all older men were called 'dewey' because he has also called a few men at church by that title. We've set him straight. Ben-Ben calls Melissa 'maMA'. I still think it's hilarious how he emphasizes the last syllable of a word.

One last tid-bit: It was Benjamin's first week in nursery today at church, and it went well. We brought him in, showed him his teachers and the toys, and said good-bye. No sadness, no crying. I was pretty surprised. I checked on him an hour later and he was happily eating pretzels, and didn't even notice me. Ethan didn't know I had checked on him, so he happened to stop in 10 minutes after, and apparently, Ben-Ben had had enough. (It was over an hour past his nap time by that point.) Sweet little Benjamin was soooooo sad. The nursery leaders said he started acting tired and fussy, and when they tried to hold him/help him he all out lost it. Understandable. Overall, a good first attempt at nursery. Yay Ben-Ben! Ethan and I have been looking forward to this day for so long. Fulfilling our teaching/piano playing assignments is much easier now. If only we could find some magic trick to get our active, noisy, 18 month old boy to cooperate during the first hour sacrament meeting at church. Hmmm, we'll get back to you on that one.