All the fall you can handle!

Dave heads to Chicago for a few days for work tomorrow, so we decided to cram every possible ounce of festive fall fun into a single weekend.

First up was the kids' Halloween Carnival in downtown Matthews, which we finally found after stopping in to ask at Town Hall (the town event website was maddeningly vague Re: actual location).

Remy is a froggy this year, by specific request.

 

River of course has no say in the matter and was thus forced to be peas in a pod.

 

The best thing about Remy's costume, as far as he was concerned, was the fact that the cheap polyester material turned him into greased lightning on the bounce house slide.  In fact, he loved it so much that he refused to come out, and I had to fling myself sideways through a gap in the bounce house walls--while wearing River in a sling--to snag him by the foot and haul him out.  Not pictured: sweaty angry don't-wanna-stop-sliding tantrum on the way out of the park.

Today the storm of the century hadn't sent us anything more serious than a gentle breeze, so we drove up to Hall Family Farm to visit the pumpkin patch.  If you're in the Charlotte area and have little kids, Hall is most definitely the way to go--you will actually leave with your wallet mostly intact.  All of the kids' activities are free and there is no admission charge.  Remy spent a solid hour charging from the hay fort to the ball pit to the duck race to the giant sand box--although whoever was in charge of stocking the sand box evidently had zero experience with toddlers, and equipped it with several POINTY METAL SHOVELS.  Things momentarily began to resemble The Hunger Games.

River was filled with Halloween spirit this morning...

 ...and was completely Over It by the time we got there, naturally.

The pumpkin patch did not disappoint.  We very seriously considered just hitting up a grocery store pumpkin lot this year, what with the move and the work trips and everyone fighting colds, but I'm glad we went for the real thing. 

I mean, you can't ride a tractor in a grocery store parking lot, you know?

So obviously after all that, we drove off and accidentally left our carefully-selected pumpkin.  Halfway down 485, the temptation to pick a replacement up at Wal-Mart instead was very, very strong.  But dude, I did not get up, cook pumpkin spice waffles, and dress the baby in a ghost hat just so we could get a stupid mass-produced gourd, so back we went!

And then I went to Wal-Mart anyway.  Because pumpkin patches don't sell beer.