our 2011 Halloween

"Carve a Pumpkin"
If you can, buy a pumpkin carving kit - it will make the carving easier and safer. Choose a pumpkin with a fairly even surface. Cut a lid out of the stem end, set it aside, and remove the pulp and seeds with a large kitchen spoon. Scrape out some of the meat of the pumpkin to make the inside clean and smooth. Draw a face on the outside with a magic marker. Use a sharp knife to carefully cut out the design. Choose a short, fat candle to illuminate the pumpkin. Light the candle and anchor it in some soft wax dripped in the bottom of the pumpkin. Put the lid back on the pumpkin (tilt it slightly to leave a space; the flame gets more oxygen and burns brighter this way.) ... Place your jack-o'-lantern in a window or on a porch to light up the night." excerpt from Mom's Almanac

We may not be pros at carving pumpkins (this was technically our first year to do it all by ourselves without help from our parents! ha ha!) but rest assured, we had fun in the kitchen with the boys creating jack o lanterns this Halloween. I laughed and told Clay that in two years we would be doing this in record time with our eyes closed! My thoughts were to keep the designs simple...2 eyes and a mouth with a scraggly tooth. Clay and Parker decided they wanted to try out their carving skills, so they went to town with their design cards and carving utensils.

Fifteen minutes before our Small Group arrived Sunday evening, our kitchen still had pumpkin seeds, pumpkin juice, and pumpkin carving utensils everywhere. In the midst of frantically pulling it all together in the end (kinda like that 1980s movie "Adventures in Babysitting" with Elisabeth Shue when Chris did a 2 minute mad-dash clean-up as the parents were pulling into the driveway), one of my jack-o'-lantern's teeth fell out leaving only a single tooth on the smallest pumpkin of the group. There was no time for glue, so Clay lined the pumpkins out on the front porch, laughed and said, "Carrie, come look!" I ran out to see what the humor was and couldn't help but shake my head and smile...

...I had made a baby Cooper pumpkin! (although Cooper has quite a few more teeth than this friendly fellow!)

Parker was a pirate. Cooper was Peter Pan. Aaahhhh!!! My heart melts all over again seeing them dressed up like the little characters. PRECIOUS little boys....who are getting too big too fast.

 Though Cooper did not take part in the actual trick-or-treating part of the evening, he had fun hanging out with his brother before passing out in his daddy's arms precisely at bedtime. Parker loaded up his little McDonald's Happy Meal bucket with treats from all over the neighborhood. He ran from house to house excitedly saying either "hello!"(sometimes he forgot the "trick or treat" part!) or "trick or treat!" and then politely saying thank you to each of the candy-givers. My heart smiled during the whole hour. He came home proudly dumping all of his treats on the floor. Parker then took over a very important job of handing out candy to the last of our trick or treaters. He took his job very seriously and loved it! After reading a Halloween story or two, we then all turned in for the evening. I'm pretty sure I drifted off to sleep dreaming of a certain pirate and peter pan. ;)

Hope you all had a safe and fun Halloween this season!