Fall at Froberg's

Fall is one of my favorite times of year, behind Christmas and Easter.  The suffocating, oppressive heat and humidity that have covered Houston like a blanket as thick as the Tabernacle curtain finally begin to blow away and are replaced with a crispness that gives both kids and adults a new energy for the season to come.  And with that crisp air comes fall festivals.  Corn mazes, hay rides, pumpkin patches, face painting....it's not time for Halloween or Thanksgiving in my mind until you've completed one or all of the above listed milestones.  On Saturday the kids and I went to Froberg's Farm which is only about 15 minutes from the house.  It's Texas' largest strawberry farm, and during the fall they grow corn, mustard greens, and other seasonal crops.  They sell wristbands and tokens so you can enjoy all of their fall activities, and they have a little market too that sells all of their produce. We had SUCH a blast, and chasing them around that farm I felt a little less 32 and a little more 8.

We began with the corn maze, which had a cute spot at the front to take their picture.  And I gotta say, there are memories of my childhood that my kids will never experience in theirs.  Exhibit #1 would be the beauty that is the AWFUL picture.  Back before digital cameras, what your mamma clicked with her film camera was the picture you would have for life.  Now, if the picture sucks, we can delete, remove red eye, crop, filter, rotate.....the options are endless.  Hardly any bad pictures of my kids exist thanks to the digital age.  I said "hardly."  Little gems like this is what the digital age has largely removed from our lives:

Me: "Jack, we gotta retake that...your eyes were closed.  And Sarah, your arm is out like you're pretending to be a scarecrow or something.  Can we try to look a little more normal??"

Ta da!  A picture perfect memory circa 2015.

For this corn maze experience, which was my first, I had child navigators.  They had the map and we took off.  They "read" the map and proceeded to get us lost.  And if I do say so myself, I did a very good job of keeping my claustrophobic tendencies in check and not freaking out.

Yes, yes we were lost.  Now there were a dozen other people in the maze so I was sure they wouldn't need to send out a search party, which I explained to my kids.  So Jack, ever resourceful, busted out his "Montana tracking skills" and began to look for his footprints in the sand so see if we had already been down that particular path.  There were hundreds and I mean hundreds of footprints in the dirt since there hasn't been rain in a few weeks, but after close examination of the treads of his sneakers my little Tonto managed to find "his" footprints and lead us to the exit.  

This picture I include for a separate purpose, to share a little something with you about myself and my parenting stage.  I am so SO overjoyed with the stage my kids are in now.  We need no diapers, wipes, cups, blankets, binkies, changes of clothes, yada yada yada when we go places these days.  They're finally miniature adults and the only thing I need to bring with me when we go into public is my mamma hard-ass attitude to get them back in line if they get too sassy.  But this poor mamma, and so many others that day....they had toddlers.  Toddlers in a corn maze.  This poor girl's little girl had just thrown an epic fit kicking and screaming in the dirt.  As she scooped her up (since the toddler's legs had turned to Jello and refused to continue to carry her 35 pounds down the trail) I said a prayer of prayer and thanksgiving to my sweet Jesus that my kids were no longer tots.

Flower picking was 3 tokens.  Each kid got a cup and got to cut as many flowers as they could fit into their Red Solo Cup (cue Toby Keith.  You're welcome, Dad.) My pretty flowers have a special little spot on my kitchen counter today.  Haha this picture shoulda gone into the deleted snapshot hall of fame because of sister's face, but it was too bright outside for me to notice her squinty face.  And side note, don't you just love Sara's cute shorts.  Adorable.

After the corn maze and flower picking Sarah had I mean HAD to get her face painted and Jack, I mean he's too old for that apparently.  And little sis picked the kitty cat face just like she and every other girl under 8 does every time she gets her face painted.  But...she does make a pretty adorable kitty.  As the lady in Home Depot told her later that day. 

Happy Fall!!