Pumpkin Patch with the Harrisons

Friday night was opening night of the Pumpkin Patch! It is so fun to have such a beautiful, fun, free place to go in October while the weather is amazing. We already had a family dinner at the Harrison's planned so we bought some hayride tickets in advance for the whole group and all went as a family before dinner. I am not joking when I say this is the best and ONLY family pic we got. Luckily we will probably be here 100 more times (if only for the kettle corn) in the next month so there is a chance we might get another one. You can only feed the animals on hayrides before it gets dark so we wanted to purchase in advance to make sure we got those tickets. It was so worth the extra effort. They loved it. You feed some miniature donkeys english muffins and bread to some cows on the hayride. This is what Kinley thought of the smell.
Brother-Sister pics are my favorite. This is a scary foreshadowing to me of 12 years from now.... We did work really hard to get some good pics of the kids with Gary and Cheryl and finally got a few with all smiles. And at least I got a couple pics with this stud... How cute are Alex and Mendy!?
Kinley just loves her Aunt Minnie. They have such a sweet relationship. 

 One quick side note story...I will spare the details because it is not really my story to tell but I did check to make sure it was ok to blog. 

 Very recently Alex and Mendy's home was robbed while they were at work. They pretty much took everything that was worth anything that could be re-sold quickly. It was painful and sad and such a hassle for them. The very next day after it happened Mendy came to our house for the day to use our computer (because hers was stolen) to research about what was taken and make phone calls and make lists for the insurance company, etc. 

 She got there before Kinley and Ty left for school and Kinley overheard us discussing what happened and what to do next but I wasn't sure exactly what all she understood. 

Before we left she ran to ask Mendy if she would come with me to pick her up from school and Mendy said "sure, I can do that today." Well, when we picked her up her teacher said "Is this the Aunt Minnie who had some things taken from her home?" 

 We said yes and knew Kinley had been worried all day. 

 We tried to talk to her about how thankful we were that Mendy and Alex and Brinkley (their dog) was safe and how God gives us all we need and that things are just "things." We prayed for peace and saftey for Alex and Mendy and prayed that the "bad guys" would get caught by the police. 

 We didn't want her to worry. 

 Well, fast forward to dinner....As serious as a heart attack after we prayed for our meal, Kinley asked "Did those bad guys take all of Aunt Minnie's nail polish?" 

 Sweet angel. 

 It was all I could do not to laugh. I texted mendy and asked her and she assured us no nail polish was stolen. Her next question was "What about her makeup?" You can tell where this 4 year old's head was at as far as what "things" were most important to her. 

 In a way it was super sweet. Mendy paints Kinley's nails almost every time she sees her. Mendy always tells her the #1 rule for a girl is to always have nail polish on your toes.  So, Kinley associates nail polish with Mendy. Kinley did not want that taken away. Mendy, in her precious, reassuring way, brought her whole nail polish kit over for family dinner on Friday just to paint Kinley's nails again and assure her that those "bad guys" did not take away their special time together. 

 Thank you Minnie. 

 Melt.my.heart.