One MAD MOM at the Frederik Meijer Gardens

This blog post title can be a little misleading.........I'm not referring to myself :) I'm referring to this spectacular sculpture by Tom Otterness. This past Tuesday Tim and I decided (spur of the moment) to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and our FM Gardens membership. I've taken the boys a handful of times this year, but we hadn't been as a family, so we took advantage of their Tuesday extended hours. Of course we were viewing a few sculptures by dusk (and the boys required warm hats) but the place was quite empty. The boys enjoyed just running and exploring! This facility is fabulous and always very interesting (as well as educational). It's great for literally ALL ages (no, I don't get a membership discount for throwing in that sales pitch). Without further ado, here's the Mad Mom herself:


Reece made the comment, as we were leaving, that this sculpture was me - nice.....and that comment was NOT prompted by his father


Marvelling at Jaume Plensa's "letter people" (well, that's not the official name of the sculpture, but it is representative :)


Lucas found part of his name

And if you look close enough you can actually spell his name around his body! That was not a posed picture (well, not besides me telling Lucas to look through the *U*).

Lucas in awe of the beautiful sculpture in the Lena Children's Garden (a beautifully designed outdoor area for children).

Hand carved pumpkins

Treasuring up the last bits of evidence of summer

At the Farm area................I think this is one of my favorite pictures of my boys.......why?.......because this isn't posed (though I really tried, but my assistant wasn't into it :).........it's my babies in the moment!

The pumpkins really were that BIG!!!

Jackson couldn't even climb on them

Guess what type of tracks these were?

Yup! Three deer right smack in the middle of one of the trails at the gardens. I've never seen deer here before - of course I didn't have my zoom lens on, so this is the best I could do!