Country Mercantile - A Boy Joins the All Girls Group

This year's annual girl's outing to the Country Mercantile was invaded by our first boy! Since he's the the most awesomest, adorable nephew ever the boy was allowed. :-) Our first stop was to grab Grandma's annual picture in the wagon wheel by the trains tracks...only to discover that the wheel was no longer there. Ruh row. So we compromised and grabbed her picture on a nearby haystack. Not as iconic, but still cute IMO.

All the grandkids with Grandma.

Next up was our last "planned" photo shoot of the "How Tall This Fall?" cutout. We have a few people in the family who don't like to have their picture taken *coughKatieandHayleecough* so the compromise was to take the two planned pictures first and then they didn't have to take any additional pictures they didn't want the rest of the night. Kind of like eating your broccoli before your brownies, I suppose. As someone who LOVES to have my picture taken I simply do not understand this mentality. Thankfully I'm raising another photo taking lover in my daughter. I have zero idea what I would do if she didn't like her picture taken. :-)

Abby loves coming up to me and saying "Mom, my legs are so BIG. They're growing up!" Oh, baby girl, how I know this fact. Last year she was at the 3.25 mark and this year she's grown to the 3.5 mark. A whole quarter tick. :-)

When my sister posted this picture to her Facebook account one comment said "It looks like Chase is big enough to try to starting toddling away from the girls". Would you believe he's only 4.5 months old? And that he's wearing 18 month clothes in this picture? 

From our picture taking we let the girls loose on the rides. Abby immediately screamed "horsies" and ran to the carousel so Haylee grinned and followed suite. From the carousel the girls took turns picking what ride to do next.

The girls were all agrins when the ride started.

Marveling at the lights on the carousel.

Chase loved going around and around and around.

I simply love how expressive she is. Pure joy radiates so lovely on her face.

Mom and Haylee took a spin on the roller coaster while Abby decided to stay safely on the ground. She definitely remembered the roller coaster ride at the fair because as soon as we asked if she wanted to go on the ride with Haylee she said "No. Scary fun roller coaster. No."

Abby ran full force at this obstacle in the bounce house and promptly got thrown right back. :-) As big girl as she is she's still pretty little.

We told Haylee to help Abby get up the ladder but Abby had other ideas and simply shimmied up the ladder herself...

Before throwing herself down the slide at super speed.

Pretty soon the lure of the hale bale tower overcame the desire to continue riding the rides and we were off to a new spot of harvest fun.

Cousin love!

Racing up to the top as fast as they can.

At the top! This was also the first year that I let Abby climb to the top by herself. It didn't hurt that the hay bale tower was a few hay bales shorter this year. :-)

Chase climbed a little hay bale of his own and was mildly interested for a minute, but then Grandma wanted him.

And Grandma was WAY more fun than straw. :-)

After a mild heart attack where I walked all around the hay tower and couldn't find the girls (they were walking around the top in circles just ahead of me) I helpfully suggested we head over to the hay bale maze.

Still figuring out how walking through the maze actually works.

Following Haylee's lead.

But deciding that blazing their own path is more fun.

Had to add this picture because they were totally photo bombing. :-) The guy in this picture was on top of the tower and his wife/girlfriend was on top of the other tower and they were trying to take pictures of each other. It was working beautifully until the girls decided they wanted to see what was going on. I hope they got their picture after we left.

Had to add this picture. This is Chase's typical "dur" face. He's such a laid back kid (as least in my opinion) that just takes in the world around him. 

It was starting to get dark at this point so it was time to venture out into the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. We were at the festival on "Battelle night" (a local business' employee's group makes a deal for a super fun night for a reduced price) and part of the deal was that everyone got a free pumpkin, which meant we'd be taking home five free pumpkins. Yay! Abby was just so cute picking out her pumpkin this year. We walked almost half of the pumpkin patch trying to find the perfect pumpkin. She wanted one that was "THIS BIG" and walked and walked until she found just what she was looking for. Which turned out to be a smallish-medium sized white pumpkin. But darn if it was the perfect one for her. :-)

Scouring the field for her perfect pumpkin.

Loading up the pumpkins and the girls for the trip back to the car. Abby is sitting on her perfect, white pumpkin.

Hauling Haylee back to the fair.

Before switching and being hauled herself.

We headed back to the festival for a few last minute moments of fun before heading in to eat dinner and calling it a night.

My most favorite picture of the night. Me and my girl.

A spin in the airplane. She never did figure out how to pull the stick back long enough to fly into the air, but she had a marvelous time none-the-less.

She couldn't miss the opportunity for one last "horsie" ride.

Another fun-filled year at the Harvest festival with Grandma.

This wraps up another year of visiting the Country Mercantile for a family get-together. I'll admit that Friday afternoon had me wondering if we should even go. Health issues and general crankiness (on both Abby and I's parts) had me thinking that it might be easier to scrap the evening's plans, but I was glad that I decided we needed to end the week on a good note because we had so much fun together. I'm thankful for the time Abby and I spent together this year (as well as the time with the rest of my family) and am looking forward to next year's outing!