ANNUAL PUMPKIN CARVING FHE
We finally did our pumpkins! Audrey had mentioned going to the pumpkin patch pretty early on in the season, so I was waiting for that. Unfortunately, we had to change the day for that and this was the only Monday left that we could carve. So we went to Bowman's got some HUGE pumpkins (seriously, all they had were big ones!), came home and went to town on them! We had so many seeds from all of those! It was amazing! We had a good time- everyone working hard. This always goes so smoothly. I know I say it every year, but it's a really fun time. Everyone gets along and compliments each other the whole time. Luke turned on some Halloween music for us for some atmosphere- it was a lot of fun! Everyone did their own pumpkin for the most part. Molly and Jack both opted out of the gut scooping- not enough sensory time in their childhoods apparently- but Molly as moral support while I carved out the "make a scary face!! No wait, a STAR!!" on her pumpkin. She got to use one of the ones from our garden! Jack carved his own! He was so cute, working so hard on his! I was impressed. Didn't even draw on it first and it came out pretty uniform! Erika was such a good sport! Upon cutting open her pumpkin, she discovered it was FULL of mold! SO GROSS!! She fought her way through all the mold with a long handled spoon, and seriously surprised us all with her stamina! It was a lot of work and very gross! There was of course a big hole in the bottom which is why it was moldy. We will never let that happen again, I can guarantee that! But even when offered to trade with several of us, she just pushed through! Such a trooper! She even designed her own spider on it and carved it mostly on her own. I think Kelly helped her a little toward the end, we were all sitting on the porch waiting for her. But she did so good! I was impressed. Noah was pretty quiet the whole time and produced quite the masterpiece! Going all out on shaving teeth etc. I was very impressed with his creativity and ability to pull it all off on his own! Luke too! Luke's was enormous! He got very creative as well. I loved hearing his commentary the whole time. He was pretty happy and funny- especially when he broke the little orange knife. Brad was super quiet too, but worked hard the whole time. He was somewhat disappointed with his near the end, something happened that "ruined the whole thing", but none of us could see what he was talking about. He did a cool "one-eyed cyclops". Kelly was very excited about her idea and pulled it off perfectly as she always does. She is usually the last one done, but unless you count her helping Erika, wasn't this year! She did a great job- the teeth around the whole thing looked pretty cool. Charity had a remarkably successful carving this year! We were all very happy to see her happy and having a good time! She found a Jazz printable online and used the template to make her utah with the basketball lines through it! It did end up looking really cool! I was so glad she was enjoying it all. I got to use the other one from the garden and I did one of my childish pumpkin faces that I love so much :). I think it's adorable. Nate did a really cool face on his that looks like an ape almost. I was happy that he was in the mood to carve this year- there have been a lot that he hasn't. So that was fun. He did make it quick so that he could turn on the Jazz game and keep us all updated on that. It was a successful FHE. I got my traditional pictures of each kid with their pumpkin, but since Molly had put herself to bed in the middle of it, she was not there for the "everyone on the porch" ones. Which of course bums me out. But whatever. She was pretty tired and not really getting into it all. I will be roasting pumpkin seeds for days! 10-22-18
