"Making Pumpkins"

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love love love the idea of being someone (or something) different for a night, and I love love love even more to be scared! Not like scared for my life or that of my children, hiding under the bed or the back of a closet type scared. But scary movie, haunted house scared...sign me up! I love the festive feel of Halloween, the way the kids all get so excited about Trick or Treating, and how serious the right costume is for my boy, it will only get more serious I am certain.

Part of the Halloween spirit is carving pumpkins and my boys LOVE to do this! Although you must know that it is not called carving at our house, it's called "making pumpkins".

JB dug right in. He had no problems with the "ewwy, gooey" like big brother did his first year. Brock and I had problems though. We had problems keeping him out of it long enough for Adam to have a try! It is amazing how different these two are turning out to be.

Adam did give it a few tries, but in the end he opted out of using his hands and used a spoon. We sent him in to get a spoon of his own and he came out with a baby spoon. When he was a babe Great Grandma Daily gave us a spoon that we can only assume was used by the generations before him. It is metal, all metal as they once were, and well worn. And Adam still loves to use it. And while I am totally down with him using it at meal times, it was a bit too small for the pumpkin making purposes.

   

So in keeping with our "kids can be washed, let them be little" theme, the boys got down and dirty. Mostly Jacer as you can see, he was quite greasy with pumpkin slime within the first 5 minutes. Adam tends to keep pretty clean if he can. Jace seemed to like the taste of the pumpkin, and we had a hard time keeping him out of the seeds so we relented and let him chew on the other pieces. I hear pumpkin is good for you.

Dancing Haselbys! No, there was no music. But who needs music? We are constantly singing and dancing around here, these boys really know how to bust a move.

Bruce is never too far from the action. He was mostly interested in Jace though as he thought he was eating something pretty good. Jace was willing to share...

The finished product turned out cute. Although I must say, he looks alot like our "Jacks" from previous years!

Adam was missing in action for several minutes, claiming he had a surprise for us. Turns out he went to get our next victim. He was a little bummed that we wouldn't be making Jack a brother, but only took us saying it was time for seeds to help him forget all about it.

Meet Jack 2011. Well, he is now a decaying carcass sitting on the front stoop. We may make another Jack this week if the rain lets us! The boys were super pumped to see the final product all lit up. We headed out after bathtime for the ceremonial lighting and pictures. Love this little family tradition!

Ahh the fruits of our labor! Adam loved the seeds again this year. We knew he would since he was pretty into them last year, not to mention they are crunchy and salty!

Happy Halloween!