pumpkin carvings

its the middle of october. its raining. 5 out of 5 meiste's have colds. the conditions are perfect for some pumpkin carving.

this adventure began yesterday after school. we always pass this wagon o pumpkins on the way home so this time i stopped, unbuckled and unloaded the babes to scour the wagon in an effort to find the perfect pumpkin. last night was way hectic what with soccer practice, no husband, and a small fire that happened on the stovetop. (just turned on the wrong burner, not a big deal. except now all the bread kinda tastes like burned plastic...) therefore, we did not get to carving until this morning.

guess who picked out this pumpkin?


yeppers. wes, those are his cute little toes.

bear was eager to begin. maxer was far less excited about the prospect of slicing into the very pumpkin he so carefully picked out. i convinced him to join us by presenting a hammer and nails. we initially nailed around the top of the pumpkin, creating holes that i followed when cutting off the top, sorta connect the dotsish. whenever tools appear, boys are soon to follow.

please note the top of another pumpkin laying on the table. this was our second pumpkin carving attempt of the morning.

upon opening up the pumpkin and finding all the guts and seeds, the part i anticipating the boys most enjoying, max and wes refused to go near. maxer only touched it when i bribed him with more hammering. he was not happy about it.

we decided on a cat pattern as bear is currently in love with all things kitty. he made this picture of black crayon scribbles and cat stickers and he literally carries that thing all over the house. strange. so the website labeled this particular pattern as appropriate for a 12 year old, so i thought it was something i could handle. i was wrong. i suck at crafts. plus the pumpkin was smallish.

voila! check out our kitty cat pumpkin. yes, its a cat. see the whiskers? and the mouth is somehow attached to the nose. again, not an artist. complete with candle and everything tho. impressive, i know.

thankfully, the boys are not very critical. they both adored the final project. and the fire.

here is the little ginger admiring our handiwork. she napped during the entire ordeal, so this was her first glimpse of our creation. she put her little fingers through the holes and said "hot" repeatedly. gorgeous little dimples in this one :)

in an unrelated event, bear took this pic of his tiger being crammed into a choo choo train. bec

ause i could not correctly stuff the entire thing into the train, weston had many a spaz resulting in tylenol for all. a bit of a glimpse into the life of weston bear.