Hunting for Pumpkins at Park City Nursery

As I mentioned earlier this month, we’re diving into this holiday season in a different way: through the eyes of our toddler! We strolled the Scarecrow Festival at the McPolin Farmstead a couple of weekends ago, finally checking out something we’ve seen from afar for years. What a blast to experience the fun parts of the holiday that adults sort of forget about. Thank you, sweet Oden, for allowing us to act like the big kids we truly are.

The Park City Nursery is a real gem. We love supporting local businesses, and it’s a treat to visit the nursery to lovingly select the plants for our garden and flowers for our front door décor each spring. At Christmastime, we splurge on a fancy tree and enjoy the extra-festive vibe they create so wonderfully. The people who work there are knowledgeable and helpful and fun. There’s nothing like it anywhere else in town, and it makes me happy each time we go. Recently, we stopped by to check out the pumpkin situation and, as usual, I was charmed from the moment we got out of the car!

In addition to pumpkins of every size, shape, and color, the grounds were full of mums and unique seasonal décor. They’ve created a little maze using bales of hay, filled with thoughtful little areas for photos here and there. We let Oden run around and check things out, trying to snap photos of him along the way. He’s only this age once! He sort of cooperated for pictures, but as seems to be the norm these days, he was on the move again before we could say, “Cheese!” It’s so fun to see him exploring his world with wonder and confidence.

Around the back of the property, we discovered a little “Haunted Forest” with spider webs and spooky sounds and other creepy things. The scariest moment for me was looking around at the fake skeletons and giant spiders, then glancing up and seeing a real kid above us in a tree! I’m not a fan of the part of Halloween that focuses on fear and death, so we wandered along with Oden and made sure nothing was frightening. He’s a brave little kid, and even the giant blow-up dragon didn’t give him a scare. He just roared at it, waved and said “Hi!” in his cute baby voice, and moved on. (I learned that it’s because they’d already seen Mr. Dragon multiple times during daddy-son trips to Home Depot lately!)

We came out of the forest right next to this adorable old house that has been converted into a gift shop. I’d never been inside so I took a quick peek over the Dutch door. It was full of all sorts of unique, local items and drew me right in. I can see that I’ll be back to do some shopping at some point!

Our “happy baby” window was closing as we approached Oden’s lunch time, so we went back to the pumpkins and picked out a few good ones for the front stoop. There was hot cider, coffee, and a plate of yummy treats for patrons, so John and Oden shared a bite of pumpkin bread while Mama selected a few additional décor items. When it was time to go, Oden turned from a little angel to…well, a hungry, tired toddler and treated everyone from here to Wyoming to an epic meltdown. It was the only dark spot on an otherwise fun family morning!

While we might have stayed a few minutes longer than we should have with Oden, the visit to the nursery was just what I’d hoped it would be. We won’t visit again until we hunt for our Christmas tree, when there’s (hopefully) snow on the ground and a fire is burning in the firepit and Santa’s Workshop is bursting with tinsel and glitter and ornaments. Exploring the pumpkin patch, hay bale maze, and haunted forest was a super fun activity for us. So far, this holiday season is pretty magical.