cornbelly's

on saturday morning, we headed up to cornbelly's at thanksgiving point with the girls for some fall festivities. randy has been itching to go to a corn maze for the last few years and we decided to finally bite the bullet and do it this year.

the girls were fairly reticent when we first arrived and diane wouldn't even let me put her down. we decided to start out easy by sitting on a big rocking chair. they weren't that amused.

once they saw the big wooden play structures with slides though, they were sold.

after randy showed the girls his lasso skills, they decided to give it a try.

we headed over to the corn maze, although it took some serious convincing to get the girls to leave the slides. it wasn't exactly what randy had hoped for and not the most fun activity for small children. after about ten minutes of wandering around, we took a few shortcuts through the corn and made our way back to the entrance. so much for that.

even though she was having fun, diane had her thumb in her mouth pretty much the entire time we were there. it was her morning nap time (which she has given up taking, but is still tired through), so if she wasn't on the move, she was in sleepy mode.

next, we hit the cow train ride. madeleine did not want to go, so she sat out with randy and i took diane. i am not sure how i crammed myself into the cow barrel and i am not sure that my tailbone will ever be the same.

we took a quick break and spent a small fortune for a mediocre lunch. diane spent the whole time dipping things in mustard, making this face, and then immediately going back for more.

the girls loved these jump pillows. so much better than a trampoline. plus, they had one for little kids and one for big kids, so the girls weren't terrorized by older aggressive children.

diane fell down a couple times and had a hard time getting back up. she would sit there with her head bouncing against the pillow over and over until she could finally regain her balance. i would have intervened, but she was laughing wildly the whole time.

she also had a long period of time where she just sat on her bottom, thumb in mouth, while she was gently bumped up and down. i wish i had a picture of it, but i didn't take one.

at this point we cooled it on the pictures, but we went on a lot more slides, did a bouncy house, and finished up with a hayride. on our way up, i had told madeleine about the hayride and explained that we would sit on a wagon with hay and horses would pull the wagon. she said that she did not want to ride behind horses (apparently she has a great fear of horses). i didn't push it, but wanted to she if she would change her mind when we got there. fortunately, the wagon was pulled by a tractor and we didn't have to deal with the horse issue. she said that the hayride was her favorite part of the day, but that may have been because it was the last thing that we did. diane tried to fall asleep on my lap during the hayride, so we decided to call it a day and head home.

all in all, it was a success and i'm glad we went. it was a fun way to spend a fall morning.