Pumpkin Patch Bento Fun!

Since she loved Thomasson Family Farms' Pumpkin Patch so much last year, I decided to go again with my MOMS Club this year, even though we are going with both her preschools later this month! So I decided on a pumpkin-themed bento to celebrate.

Pumpkin Patch Bento

Top (her lunch): PBHoney Jack-o-lantern, yogurt pretzels, green beans,
cheddar pumpkins, pluot Jack-o-lantern w/blueberries
Bottom (my lunch): PBHoney, cheddar scraps, blueberries & pluot, carrots w/Ranch

I used a fun pumpkin cutter I got from a set that has a second cutter on top to make imprints or cut-outs in cookies. So I used the cut-outs on the top slice only to make a Jack-o-lantern with her peanut-butter-honey sandwich.
The only veggie I had left other than carrots (and apparently leftover snap peas from the previous day's lunch, but I forgot about them in there) were some green beans. I told her they were like pumpkin vines.
I tossed in a few raspberry-yogurt-covered pretzels, since they've been sitting around in the kitchen for a while and should get used up. Plus they added color and filled up space. Win!
I used a super mini cutter from a Wilton set to make the cheddar pumpkins. I opted for cheddar since my husband had bought some pre-sliced for his lunches and I was too lazy to slice up some CoJack.
I made a face on half a pluot with a steak knife, and sliced up the other half for my lunch. Filled it up with some blueberries. Yum! The little pumpkin pick is actually from a tic-tac-toe set I got at Dollar Tree last year.

She ate half of the sandwich, some berries (said the pluot was too juicy) and a cheddar pumpkin or two. And the pretzels, of course. She was delighted that they had melted together into pairs (the bag sat in my car for a while on a hot day. Oops.)

This particular pumpkin patch has a lot of appeal for the Podling crowd. That's why both of her preschools chose it for their 3-year-olds classes (and why her co-op chose it for the 2's class last year.)
We started off at the hay maze, which is like a corn maze, but made out of bales of hay, so the kids can see over the top. And climb it. And it's covered, which was nice, since it was raining. There're also two slides going down into it, and some tubes to crawl through. And these round hay bales that Z called "hay trampolines" and spent most of our time there jumping on.

From there we went down to the pumpkin patch, where she chose the tiniest one she could find. Since I was the one designated to carry it, I was a fan of the small one! She refused to smile with her pumpkin for me. This is her "silly face."

After a ride in their hay wagon back around to the front, we played in the Kiddie Korral, which has wooden horses to sit on, with little wooden calves to lasso. There's also slides there, plus running water troughs for rubber ducky races, and huge tubs of bubble solution.

And a horsey tire swing!

I was starting to get antsy, since we had a limited amount of time left before having to leave for school, and we hadn't yet done the best part - the corn box! A huge play area, filled with dried corn kernels, plus tube slides. Sensory heaven! Luckily that part was next.

Right next to the corn box were some animals to look at and pet, but I couldn't get any good pictures. She got to pet a bunny, which just made her day!
On the way out, we stopped and took photos at the "How Tall This Fall?" pumpkin standee, where I got a photo of her last year too. I'll do another post with both pictures to compare!

(this week's theme: Smiles!)