Pumpkins, pumpkins and more pumpkins was our first thought when we walked up to the Texas Pumpkin Fest in Leander.  I don’t think I have ever seen such a variety of pumpkins in one place and not to mention all of the different sizes! We visited the festival on a Thursday morning with our two year old.  When we were driving there I honestly thought we were in the wrong place because it looked like we were just driving through a few neighborhoods, but then all of a sudden we saw the pumpkins!  There is a large parking lot and no matter where you end up parking it is a short walk to the entrance (and best of all parking is free!).  We went right when it opened at 10 a.m. on a weekday morning so the crowds were low which is nice for our two year old because he is still getting used to having a lot of people around.  We paid $5 each for my husband and I and our little guy was free.  However, the entry price varies per day so I would recommend checking out their website (https://texaspumpkinfest.com/) for details on pricing.

The first thing we decided to do was ride the barrel train.  Our two year old loves every type of train and this was no exception.  He was “choo chooing” the entire ride.  The barrel train did require an extra ticket ($5 to ride) which was a little surprising for us because we assumed all of the attractions would be included in the entry price.  The ride goes all around the pumpkin patch and lasts about 10 minutes and there is plenty to look at.  After the barrel train we decided to check out the two mazes.  They have a corn maze and a hay maze, and both are not too challenging.  The hay maze is definitely meant for younger kids because grown ups and older children will most likely be able to see right over the top, but this was the more family friendly maze of the two.  The corn maze is built to be a little scarier with talking decorations and a haunted theme.  It is also not very large, but definitely more for the older children (as long as they don’t mind seeing some creepy decorations!).

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There are many different activities spread out around the patch.  There is the pumpkin spinner where you can twirl yourself around, as well as smaller activities like a lawn bowling station, pumpkin smashing, and a large ring toss game. Out of those games my two year old loved the lawn bowling because he got the biggest kick out of knocking over the bowling pins!  They also have a few vendors selling toys and crafts.  After enjoying the activities you can go over to one of the food trucks and get some fair food to eat.  Since we went pretty early in the morning we did not purchase any food, but they had trucks selling popcorn, corn dogs, funnel cakes, shaved ice, and a few other goodies.  There were also multiple covered picnic tables to sit at and enjoy your food. I would imagine on the weekends these tables fill up fast so you may want to pack a picnic blanket as a backup!  Also, as we all appreciate there were plenty of port-a-potties available in the back of the patch along with handwashing stations to clean up before enjoying a meal.  They also had a separate table in the middle of the pumpkin patch with multiple bottles of hand sanitizer available for use.  

One really fun thing about this pumpkin patch is they have decorations almost everywhere you look.  They have painted wood cutouts of Sesame Street characters, Mickey and Minnie, Peanuts Characters and many more.  I also appreciated the humor of their signs.  For example, in front of the restrooms (port-a-potties) there was a sign that said “Complaint Department” and next to the hand sanitizer table (sanitation station) there was a statue dressed up in a yellow “Biohazard Unit” suit.  The last activity we did for the day was the large slide which is similar to those tall plastic slides you see at fairs.  You walk up to the top of the 65ft slide and you slide down on a burlap sack.  This was very entertaining for my husband and I.  We took turns going down while the other one stayed with our two year old.  This is definitely not a slide for little ones.  I cannot give an exact minimum age for this slide because I would say it really depends on how careful your child is and how comfortable they would be going super fast down a very tall slide.  However, there is not a maximum age because we saw many grown ups enjoying the slide next to their children.

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Texas Pumpkin Fest was the smallest of the three pumpkin festivals my family has attended this year in regards to rides and activities, however I believe it had the greatest amount of pumpkins and the largest variety of any patch we have attended since we moved to Austin.  It was really neat to see all of the pumpkins that were available for purchase.  I would say you can spend either a morning or an afternoon at this Pumpkin Patch, but it is not really a full day activity.  The entrance price is a little lower than some of the bigger festivals which is nice if you only want to go for a few hours, but it can add up if you have multiple children who want to ride the barrel train so you may want to keep that in mind.  One activity that we did not get to see because we went on a Thursday is the magic show. The Magic Shows are scheduled on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.  I think these sound like a lot of fun and you can see a picture of the schedule in this post.  Magic shows are always a big hit for my kids so we may have to go back and check one of those out on a weekend sometime.  Happy Pumpkin Picking!