"The Pumpkin Place"

AKA: The Elgin Christmas Tree Farm

We went out to Elgin on a Friday after Jon was done with work.

Alex thought the hay ride being pulled behind a tractor was cool! He was smiling almost the whole time.

We went through a spooky forest on the hay ride

and saw a lot of Christmas trees

We saw some animals

We went through a little maze they had there. Alex got to choose which ways to go, but I think we would have ended up in the maze for a long time if we weren't there to let him know which ways we had already been.

Here's Alex celebrating at the end

Alex decorated a pumpkin. I think he's pretty convinced that pumpkins are to be drawn or painted on. I love his concentration!

Then we took some pictures with the pumpkins... kind of. Alex was too interested in climbing all over them.

But I got a cute picture with the pumpkins!

After the pumpkins it was on to the dirt and tractors. Alex refused to leave this area for a good 15-20 minutes. It was only with a good amount crying that we finally got him to move on...

... to the duck races. I don't know if Jon or Alex liked this more. :)

We all had a fabulous time!

My Halloween "wreath"

After seeing an idea for a grosgrain ribbon wreath online, I decided I needed one.
I ordered some black grosgrain ribbon ($8 for 50 yds at BB Crafts- amazing price!) and tied it on a wall hanging that I already had sitting around waiting for a use.

I also got some fall ribbon from BB Crafts at the same time and will be making a fall version in the coming weeks. Hmm... Or perhaps I should do it this week since I am just 2 weeks from my due date!

Our new plants!

I finally took pictures of the new bushes that Jon ever so kindly planted for me a couple of weeks ago.
I am so happy to say goodbye to the former crazy randomness (and poisioness) plants that we had going on before.
We also added some gentle curves in the planting bed to make it a little more visually appealing and give it a little bit of variety from the straight line of the sidewalk/entry to our house.

I love the new look!

Will Flemming Hollies in front of the columns- they grow vertically
and not more than about 2' wide.
Hibiscus bushes between the columns,
and some variegated grass (don't remember what kind) up in front.

They'll look even better once they grow some more!

Oh and so you can see what it looked like before...

And imagine all of those bushes bigger... especially the one by that first column. It was so big that it was encroaching on the sidewalk area, kind of creating a bit of a tunnel. Not so pretty. It was CRAZY!

And for nostalgia's sake... here's our house when we first moved in!

I should take a new picture of how it looks now since the trees are bigger.