Fall Festival - WDM UMC

While Mandi was having a great time at The Great Pumpkin Party, we were having a great time at The Annual Fall Festival at The West Des Moines United Methodist Church at the corner of 8th and Grand in WDM.

This FREE event features inflatables (weather permitting), trunk-or-treating, a fire truck who throws candy, face painting and free food!  

The community is not only invited to attend, but to include decorated trunks to show off!  My son's favorite was the fortune-telling trunk.  

The fortune-teller told him he would grow up to be a gym teacher, I guess we'll find out if she was right in about 15 years =)

Another highlight was the fire-truck demonstration where the firefighter threw candy from stories above the kids.  Very cool.

Round out the night with hot dogs, chips, cookies and lemonade, all for just a free-will donation and you have a fun party!

What a great event.  Great to know our communities are offering such fun events in a safe environment and at a price that everyone can afford.

Great job WDM UMC!  Follow them on FB to keep updated on dates for next year's Fall Festival and other events that they hold throughout the year.

The Great Pumpkin Party

We are so lucky to have so many fun, free or inexpensive Fall and Halloween events around the metro.  We of course just can't make it to all of them (though we try!)! Luckily, I have super friends, like my friend Mandi (who is also the Des Moines Dishcrawl Coordinator) who loves to take her kids to do cool stuff.

Mandi had a great time at The Great Pumpkin Party at The Valley Church this week and was nice enough to share about her experience!

This was my first year going, and let me say I am disappointed that I haven’t taken my son every year! I walked in and was instantly in shock, I didn't know which way to go.

 I was as excited at my son was. We ran to the first bright and shinning thing, which happened to be a hall lined with tables of "hands on" chemistry things for the kids to get into.  Very cool. 

Thankfully in our front door goody bag there was a map. We began to come up with some organized plan to try to make it to everything. 

So many inflatables, games, face painting stations and crafts. They had two photo booths which I managed to drag my son to and get great photos at both. 

The lines where long for everything but well worth the wait. Across the street in the brand new community center, they had more inflatables and a petting zoo along with pony rides. 

As hard as we tried, we couldn't make it to everything, but the event runs for a few days so you could always go to the next night to enjoy anything your kid-o might not of enjoyed the first night. 


We especially love this event because they have a special evening just for special needs kids.  It's the same awesome party, but they understand that big crowds aren't always conducive to to some kids needs and they make it happen just for them.


And did we mention this event was all FREE?! Great job Valley Church!

Illumifest

Illumifest held on September 28th, 2013 at 4200 Mills Civic Parkway (West Des Moines City School Campus) is A Fall Festival of Light. It offers a variety of activities and events for people of all ages!  The excitement begins Saturday afternoon with the inagural edition of the Illumifest Car Show.  The carnival rides and games will open Saturday morning and run throughout the day, and well as a wide variety of food stands.  Saturday evening will feature many of the Illumifest events that have made this festival the fastest growing community event in West Des Monies. 

*all information taken directly from Illumifest website.

Schedule of Events 4200 Mills Civic Parkway Saturday - September 28, 2013
Illumifest Car Show Registration	11:00-2:00pm
Carnival/Food Vendors Open	1:00pm
Illumifest Car Show	2:00-4:00pm
FREE Paddle Boat Rides	3:00-8:00pm
Chinese Association Displays and Exhibits	4:00pm
FREE Lantern Making (Limited to first 1,000 people)	5:00pm
FREE Hot Air Balloon Rides (Rides are limited  & allow only two people per ride, riders must meet height restriction to ride)	5:30pm
FREE Facepainting by Library Teen Board in the    WDM Library Cafe.	6:00pm
FREE Outdoor Movie - Disney's  "Brave"	7:30pm
Fireworks Extravaganza over the Campus Pond	9:00pm
Festival Concludes	9:15pm

The hands-on lantern making activity starts at 5:00 pm.  Get creative and decorate a paper lantern to light the night!  Each lantern comes with its own LED light to illuminate your creation!  Supplies are limited to the first 1,000 people, and when they are gone...they are gone.

FREE Disney/Pixar movie "Brave" will be shown on a HUGE outdoor screen Saturday evening!  Bring your blankets and lawn chairs and enjoy this fun movie on the lawn of the WDM Library at 7:30 pm.

FREE hot-air balloon rides will be available Saturday evening starting at 5:30 pm.  Three balloons this year for shorter waiting lines!  Weather can play a huge role in the number of rides available.  Rides are limited to only 2 people per ride, and riders must meet a height restriction in order to ride.   

Des Moines Renaissance Faire

If you or anyone in your family dreams of being a knight, longs to be a princess or is obsessed with pirates. You are going to want to hit the Renaissance Faire this year. Or maybe a turkey leg, a big glass of mead and a giant bog of kettle corn sounds like a tasty meal, then go too.


In it's 11th year, the Faire has evolved into a fun event for the whole family.

This Year's Faire runs for three weekends and boasts a different theme each weekend:

August 31-September 2
- Knights, Barbarians & Heroes

September 7-8
- Scots, Britons & Irish

September 14-15
 - Pirates, Scallywags & BuccaneersKids under 5 are free and my son's favorite part is when he is knighted by the king. Very cute. The hours are 10am to 6pm and it is held rain or shine.

Ages 5-12 are $8 and adult 1 day passes are $16.  There is multi-day price info on the website.


The Faire is located at the Sleepy Hollow Sports park near the State Fairgrounds.

There is lots of entertainment and food vendors, pony rides and jousting and lots more to do and see.  Check it out!

Iowa State Fair--Kid Edition

I LOVE the Iowa State Fair! I've been going to the fair my entire life and have recently started taking my boys with me. We spent about 4 hours at the fair today and I thought I'd share some of the boys' favorite FREE activities of the day. This is in the order we tackled the fair. 

Jeep/Ram Power Wheels Test Drive--West side by the Food Building

I had to take a 4 minute survey about car products, but the boys enjoyed driving the Power Wheels around the track. 

Lego Road Trip--Far west side by the Food Building

My oldest spotted the Lego Tents the second we entered the fair! Be sure to check out this FREE activity center. Our boys made their own designs which were promptly displayed in the glass case, built race cars, and played in the Duplo area too. The best part was trying out Lego race car launcher things which they get a FREE LEGO KIT to take home! 

Natural Resources--West end of the fair on the Main Concourse

We looked at a Bald Eagle's nest, studied some big fish, watched a demo on the dangers of dams, and saw some swans. 

Varied Industries Building

We collected various pencils, tattoos, and stickers from different vendors. We hit the UNI Booth and Iowa Booth for football schedules (UNI has cool magnetic photo frames too!) The IPTV/PBS booth was cute, but Clifford was on a break so we kept moving. The Hy-Vee booth was giving out free water pouch bottles which were worth the wait. We kept filling them up for free instead of having to buy bottled water. On the south entrance of the VI building was a neat area for kids with a Lego map of Iowa--we loved this!

Hall of Law--under the east end of the grandstand

The boys practiced crawling through a burning building and learned how to stop, drop, and roll. They also loved sitting inside a fire engine and talking to the police officers. More pencils and tattoos ended up in our bag here!

Little Hands on the Farm--North Side  (Click here for Website)

They boys loved this as well as hundreds of other kids! It was very busy! They got to learn about different parts of farming--from planting the seed, to harvesting the food and selling it at the Farmer's Market. They even got to pick out a fun food item at the grocery store! Ben picked a banana and Will got peanut butter crackers. This free snack was well worth our time playing/learning on the farm! 

Knapp Animal Building--next to Little Hands on the Farm

We wanted to see the baby pigs but it was just the mama pigs today. I'm sure there will be lots of babies soon! We looked at lots of baby animals and even watched a milk-chugging contest!

Butter Cow/Seed Survivor

We didn't wait in the long line to see the butter cow, but got a really good view of it walking by. We then spent a lot of time at the Seed Survivor ar

ea and they even got to plant seeds to bring home! This was a big hit. 

Animal Barns

I'm a farmer's daughter so I grew up walking every aisle of every barn, every year. This year we walked through one aisle in each barn and that was plenty! The boys loved the chickens and horses the most. 

Tractors

My boys loved climbing into a BIG tractor on the south end of the fair. So fun! 

By the end of all of our adventures, we were tired! I'm sure we missed hundreds of great activities, but for the price of admission, we had a full day at the fair! We spent a little on food, and they even talked me into ice cream at the Food Building before we left. (I ordered one dish and had them put it into two bowls--saves money and limits sugar too!) 

Here are some more kids' ideas: Iowa State Fair Kids

Final note--we parked at the Capitol and took the bus. I really liked this option--it is $2 for adults, $1 for kids over 5(?); round-trip. If you have fair tickets already, it's half price. It dropped us off right at the entrance and we didn't have to wait for the bus either time. They had plenty lined up. Bonus--the boys loved riding in a bus without seat belts and car seats! 

What's your favorite part of the fair with kids?