More Fall Fun

The shopping center near our house had a little fall festival today. Based on last year, I did not have high expectations, so it turned out to be great! There were just a few little activities, but no crowds or lines.

At the first stop, the boys got inflatable bats. Then, we had a carriage ride (just around the parking lot, but still fun). James was carrying on a conversation with the driver the whole time. He pointed out our car, told the man he'd gone on a donkey ride yesterday, and found the letter J ("J for James!") in the Trader Joe's sign.  :)

We stopped to listen to the bluegrass band (Big Fat Gap) for a song -- they were really good!  And James was dancing and having a great time!  (Mike put in a request for them to do the ABCs, and they gave it a good effort, which was pretty funny.  Not surprisingly, they said they'd never had that request before!)

Then we went to the the balloon animals, and each boy got his favorite color (the balloon lady gave them fish on fishing poles -- Mattie got the idea, but James kept asking where the pole was. I wonder if maybe he thought we were saying pool.)  Mattie also picked out an orange lollipop (and since James didn't want his lollipop, Mattie put in a claim for Jamesie's as well).

Then we went to the bouncy castle, and the boys had a great time.  It wasn't crowded, so they could stay in as long as they wanted and go in and out.  James went down the big slide four or five times.  Mattie was perfectly happy jumping around, but he didn't do the slide at all.  I'm not sure if he had trouble getting up the ladder inside or was just intimidated because the slide seemed too big/steep.  (Of course, it didn't help that several times when Mattie went over to the ladder, James came up and tackled him from behind.  I had to tell them that no wrestling was allowed in the bounce house.)

After getting out of the bounce house, James insisted on putting his shoes on the wrong feet, and walked around with them like that until we got home.  He can certainly be a stubborn one!

Lunch and a grocery shopping trip rounded out the afternoon. Coming tomorrow: the long-awaited costume day at preschool.