Pumpkins

We carved pumpkins almost exactly two weeks before Halloween and about a week too soon, but we wouldn't have been able to do it as a family otherwise so I was willing to deal with the consequences. We worked on the girls pumpkins first and by the time they were done it was time for them to go to bed. Then after putting them to bed Nick and I had our "at home date night" and carved our pumpkins while listening to general conference talks.

We tried to let Shasta help as much as possible, but she had her own ideas of how to do things so it was difficult. But she loved gutting the pumpkins and when she was "done" with hers she helped with the others. Shelby on the other hand didn't help at all. I didn't know how to really include her so I just stuck her in her booster chair and gave her some pumpkin guts to play with. It kept her entertained pretty much the entire time, but it also ended up all over the floor. You win some, you lose some.

We took a picture of Shasta with her pumpkin, but forgot to take one of Shelby with hers. For the girls' pumpkins we just kept it simple and did a face. And I imagine that's what we will do every year until they can do their own!

We found a pumpkin that was the perfect Minion shape so of course we had to carve it like one. Nick carved this one while Shasta and I gutted the other pumpkins. I think it turned out pretty darn cute! Also, that's Shasta's pumpkin on the left. It kind of looks like a cat.

This one is Shelby's pumpkin. I decided to experiment with shaving the skin off so I shaved strands of hair all the way around. It looks kind of silly, but it's pretty cool that the light inside makes it glow.

Usually I feel pretty proud of my pumpkin, but I wasn't super impressed with how it turned out this year. It's kind of hard to tell what the whole image is, but it's of a man crawling out of his grave.

 Nick had the coolest pumpkin this year. He didn't even carve it, he just shaved off the skin. (Skin? Is that what you would call it?) It took him all of like 15 minutes and then he went to the store to get batteries for all the lights that go in the pumpkins. Some date night! Haha! And just for the record... he got the whole shaving idea from me shaving hair on Shelby's pumpkin. Just throwing that out there!

 Shasta's pumpkin and the Minion all lit up.

 Shelby's pumpkin. See? I told you the hair glowed!

Sara's pumpkin. You can see the picture a little better when it's lit up.

And Nick's pumpkin. I think it looks super cool! Usually I would say my pumpkin is always the most creative of the bunch, but this year I think Nick gets bragging rights!

The whole lot.

And of course I had to take a picture of my monster door. Shelby was constantly rearranging the spiders at the bottom so there's no rhyme or reason to how those are placed, but they fit well with the spider egg sack. I couldn't quite figure out what I wanted for the monster. I felt like it was missing something, but wasn't sure what to add or change. I probably should have done the mouth differently and I had no idea how to do eyebrows when there's three eyes, but I got a TON of compliments on it. My favorite were all the times I would hear people walking past say something about it while my windows were open! Even my neighbors came out one day and said, "we saw you guys outside and had to hurry out to tell you how awesome your door looks"!

As for our pumpkins; they looked pretty sad by Halloween night. They were caving in on themselves and starting to mold. It grossed me out sticking my hand in them to turn the lights on. Especially because it had been rainy at some point so they were soggy. And Nick's poor pumpkin only lasted a couple of day before it completely collapsed. It looked like a basketball without any air in it. I didn't even bother lighting it up. But now we know for next year that if he wants do it again it would be best to do it the night before and since it didn't take much time it won't be a big deal. But like I said, I was willing to deal with the consequences if it meant we could carve pumpkins as a family.