Halloween

Pumpkin carving has become quite the ritual at our house. Each child gets his or her own pumpkin, and then chooses a design to fit it. The designs, and especially the tiny pumpkin saws, are a huge improvement from years ago, when we’d carve them with a butcher’s knife, and try not to make Mr. Pumpkin lose too many teeth (and us lose any fingers) during the carving process. No wonder they all looked scary – they’d been disfigured by the poor kid trying to simply carve a smiley face. Nowadays you can make very intricate (and actually pretty) pumpkin designs. Now if they can just figure out a way to get the smelly goop out of the pumpkins, we’d be all right.
From the movie “Patton:” “Some of you may be asking yourselves if you’ll know what to do when the time comes. Believe me, when you put your hand in a pile of goo, that seconds before was your best friends’ brains, you’ll know what to do…” Ok, maybe scooping out the pumpkins isn’t that bad, but it sure feels and smells disgusting. (Yet pumpkin pies taste so yummy, go figure.)

Anyway, back to the story. We had a very enjoyable evening with the kids participating in the pumpkin ritual. The older kids all do their pumpkins by themselves, and Ashley and Brandon have help from Sterling and Shawna. We had lots of fun!
Now, details are still a bit sketchy about the next part, but at one point in the evening someone got a can of “liquid string” or “silly string” (which shoots from a can, then hardens into a soft foam) and started shooting the unwary pumpkin carvers. Needless to say, a small string battle ensued, as you can see from the pictures. By the end of the conflict, there were bodies, pumpkin guts, and green foam-string all over the floor. It was a good night!
Trick-or-treating was the next night, and we had a smaller crowd than usual, both of our kids and of neighborhood kids. Tyler had to work, Mackenzie stayed at home to pass out candy, and Summer was with her dad. So we went with Bryson, Ashley and Brandon. It was beautiful weather, and a very enjoyable evening. At the “scarier” stops, Bryson and Ashley would have Brandon go up first, to “test the waters” and make sure it was safe! Ah, gotta protect the young and small ones… Anyway, at 3 years old Brandon thought the whole thing was pretty cool, and would show us the candy he received after EVERY stop. “Look what I got!”