Petting Zoo Fun

We were at the local petting zoo a week ago or so, and the boy-o still talks about petting the goats and deer almost every day! Apparently our little outing made a lasting impression on him. We have a cat at home, so the boy-o is already very familiar with the concept of "gentle petting" and it's so wonderful to see him apply that to other animals as well.

We bought a few cones of feed so he could try feeding the animals. He was pretty hesitant about it at first, but each time we've gone he's gotten better at it! He's getting pretty good at feeding the carrots and cones because the animals don't actually touch his hand that way, but he's still pretty nervous about letting them lick up seed from his palm. 

It makes me smile to see my little so excited about animals and behaving so well with them--maybe one day he'll be a veterinarian or something.

Our First Indoor Softplay Experience

We had some really miserable weather the other day with a cranky boy-o trapped inside and we were pretty desperate to find something to do with him that would get us out of the house. If we were still living back in Toronto we could have met up with some of our baby friends for a playdate, but sadly we don't have any baby friends here so that wasn't an option. (oh, how we miss you all!!) So I started looking up indoor playgrounds or soft plays. We had never been to one before, but decided to give it a try to see how it worked out for us.

It was $3.50 for the boy-o to play which was quite reasonable, and even though there still wasn't really any kids his age there, he had a great time and it allowed him to burn off some energy without making us totally crazy! He was a little overwhelmed at first and unsure about what to play with, but he slowly warmed up. They had a special toddler area which was great so I didn't have to worry about him being accidentally flattened by an older kid. They had a huge ball pit, a toddler trampoline, a car-coaster, a marry-go-round, and some stationary cars to rock back and forth on as well as a tiny slide. It was a great way to spend some time playing with the boy-o. 

They have a no outside food/drink policy in effect which I totally understand because they want you to purchase your snacks there. The offerings they had were quite reasonably priced, but none of it was even remotely healthy which annoyed me since you couldn't bring in your own fruit etc. We only stayed for about an hour because by that point the boy-o was exhausted, but with their limited snack selection we wouldn't be able to stay much longer than that anyway since I don't want feed him that kind of junk. So it was great for a short stay and play, but we couldn't make an afternoon of it. It'll be a good trick to keep in mind for the next rainy day!

Fall Fun: Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend we started off Fall right by taking a trip out to a pumpkin patch. We had a lot of fun, and they had all kinds of neat decorations made with hay bales and signs. The boy-o loved running around in the field and he kept trying to pick up the pumpkins with his strong man grunts. The pumpkin patch also had all kinds of varieties that I'd never seen before--some of my favourites were the "warty pumpkin" and some gourds that looked like flowers and jelly fish.

They had hay bales painted to look like different things too. They had a rooster one, a spider, a group of three pumpkins, and some angry birds ones! Definitely some creative decorations for sure. They also had a corn maze and a pumpkin lawn bowling section where you tried to knock down 2L pop bottles by rolling a pumpkin at them!

My sister was down visiting last weekend, so we made a big group family trip out with my parents too. They provide you with huge wagons to load your pumpkins in, and the boy-o was pretty determined that he wanted to help push!

And like all good farms they had some painted cut-outs too! We look pretty spooky don't you think?

It was a really great way to start off the Fall season for us, and hopefully we'll get a chance to go apple picking sometime soon too. We've already put some of the pumpkin to good use making pumpkin pancakes! Mmmmm.....