::the rest of halloween::

Last sunday was so nice. Our chapel is being remodeled, so for now the sunday school hour is eliminated. Church was only two hours and it started at 10AM instead of 11AM. So after church we felt like we had all day long to do stuff.

We always make delicious fabulous halloween sugar cookies every year--sometime around halloween. Sometimes after. So we went to work making those. And while we were doing that Kris and Max started working on Jack'O'Laterns.
Lots of pictures:



Are those TEETH or what?! He looks a little like a snaggle-toothed pumpkin face himself.


Lots 'o guts in those big pumpkins. Can't you just smell the slimy smell?

Not sure if Kris is giving commands or about to sneeze here.

Max picked out a very cool pumpkin, and luckily for him it wasn't especially hard to carve. I was afraid it would be for sure.



Yes, Kris is making the best pumpkin ever.

And my work. It was a ton of cookies becuase we gave some away. I got pretty tired by the end.


Sandy was sleeping for most of our escapades, but eventually he woke up and was HUNGRY as usual. He wanted cookies. Instead he got cheerios.


Cheerios and water. Mmmmmmm.
More of my finished product:

And some of the boys' finished products:

All of them:

Sandy's on the far right--Kris made it. Awesome, right?
Mine is next. Kris cleaned it for me and I carved the face.
Then Kris's of course. Love it!
Max's is on the far right but you can't see it in the picture. It was almost impossible to get a candle to work in there because the gourd was so short!
So here's a photo of the huge candle from my pumpkin trying to light up his adorable one.

And there you go. That was the rest of our halloween--besides the eating dozens of cookies and lots of candy part.
We were pretty proud of ourselves for getting it all done. Happy Halloween!

::a glimpse::

Max's little jack-o-latern:

100 pieces of candy:

counted painstakingly when we got home from trick or treating.
Fun stuff.
More to come.

::souvenirs::

Last week Max went on a field trip with school. He was way excited to ride on the bus, and I was way cool to not freak out and make him stay home after the American Fork band bus incident not too long ago. Anyway, enough about motherly worries. I volunteered to go along and assist, but of course in true Rhode Island public school fashion they didn't have any parents come along.

But this post isn't about any of that.

They went to a farm, took a hay ride and got to pick out a pumpkin to bring home. At least that's what I gathered from my son's very non-descriptive description of the day.
His pumpkin was cute, and he liked it although he was very glad to hand it over to me when I picked him up. He's kinda wimpy and doesn't like to carry heavy things--wait, really anything that weighs more than an old cell phone. He'll carry an old cell phone around all day.

But, here I am sidetracked again.
Here's the man with his pumpkin.


I brought him home and fed him lunch. I cleaned up the kitchen and was sweeping the floor when he suddenly said, "oh! I almost forgot! Look at what I brought home!"
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a big handful of hay.

Seems that they did actually go on a hay ride! This is the same boy who would come back from his preschool in Kansas City with pockets full of the big gravel in the playground. I'd have to go and put it back all the time.

I was really please (as you might imagine) to have the hay hit my newly swept up floor. He gathered it up--with no small amount of encouragement--and took it outside to his "house" which is our little shed in the backyard.

What a goofball. I think he was more excited about the hay than the pumpkin. Oh well, there's no accounting for taste, right?

::spooky::

I love the bats I made last year. They're so spooky. And that cute pumpkin quilt Kris's mom made isn't so bad either!

::a little light play::

The other day when we were taking pictures of our jack o lanterns we thought we could also have some fun playing with glowsticks and the camera.

I had some bracelets left over from our halloween party that I had saved just for this purpose.

So check it out. I think these are fun!





Yeah, these would've been better NOT in front of the outside door, but that's ok.
I like how Max has the sticks in his ears.

These are my favorites:



Fun, right?

::carved::

We were actually able to get around to carving our pumpkins today.  Amazingly.  Kris and I were both pretty tired, but we figured Max didn't deserve to get short changed just because he wears us out. So we did it.
Although after the first 10 minutes Max spend his time running away instead of helping us carve, somehow his guy turned out just like he wanted.  And although he spent the last 10 minutes inside the house in time out he seemed to enjoy the experience.
We got heckled outside for being a day late on our carving, but we didn't care. At least we did it.

He loved his guy. He kind of forgot how carving is supposed to work, so when I cut into the pumpkin he got a little concerned. But it all ended up ok. He wanted a "happy one with circle eyes, a triangle nose and a happy mouth."



He was pleased.

Here's my goofy guy.

And Kris's.


We lit them up inside. We were too wimpy to stand out in the cold.



Hooray for jack-o-lanterns. They are awfully fun and magical.

>>Carving Pumpkins<<

We carved pumpkins early this year because having Halloween fall in the middle of the week is a tough one for us. Personally I think that Halloween should always be on friday or saturday night, but nobody listens to me about stuff like that, so oh well.
It pays off to have a dad that's a dentist. We use latex gloves for anything and everything!
Sultan helped out by licking us anytime we bent over to pick up stuff.

We carved all five of the pumpkins we got from the pumpkin patch and ended up with examples of several different emotions. The small ones were all commissioned by Max. He wanted one that was laughing, one that was sad and I influenced him to ask for one that was surprised. The green one is laughing, the smallish one is sad and the tiny one is supposed to be surprised, although Max thought it ended up more sad than anything. I carved the little ones.

Kris and I each carved one of the big ones.
Can anyone tell which is his and which is mine?
We had a lot of fun, and somehow none of our pumpkins ended up getting smashed!
Real halloween still to come......

Punkin Patch

On Saturday we headed out to the pumpkin patch by our old house to get some punkins we could carve. There weren't very many big pumpkins left out in the fields, but we went out searching anyway. There were a lot of little ones lying around and Max enjoyed picking out a few for us to take home. We ended up with some great pumpkiny pumpkins. Here are some photos for everybody to enjoy if they choose to do so.
Max wasn't too keen about riding in the wheelbarrow at first, but he got used to it after a while. Kris didn't dump him out, although for a while it was touch and go.You can't really see too well in this picture, but max is holding a "beebee (baby) pumpkin" It was teeny weeny and green. There were lots of cool weird gourds there too, like the one Kris is holding. The patch was so fun looking. I love these pictures.We got a tiny one, a small one and a funny green one for Max. And here Kris is holding ours. Isn't he tough? I found one with the coolest curlicues coming out of the stem, but of course on the way home the stem broke off. Oh well, isn't that how it always goes?
Long live the pumpkin patch. It's so fun that Max is finally getting old enough to catch on to what's going on and to participate.