Pumpkin Carving

This weekend was not exactly what we planned for many reasons, including a nor'easter and snow that prevented friends from visiting from NYC.  We had planned on pumpkin carving with them and figured we might as well proceed since we certainly weren't going to venture out in the nasty weather to do anything else.  The girls enjoyed it, particularly scooping out the innards.  It didn't actually take all that long since they are too young to carve and even though we let Maddie draw her own jack o' lantern face that didn't take long since she went totally basic.  I cooked up the pumpkin seeds which surprisingly Maddie enjoyed (or not so surprisingly since they were salted rather heavily).

Here are some pumpkin pictures.  I still haven't snapped a pic of the glowing pumpkins, perhaps I'll try and do that tomorrow night when they're on the front porch.  For now they are safely ensconced in our kitchen since there are roving groups of tweens tossing TP around.  Hopefully they won't get destructive and smash pumpkins, but I don't feel like testing them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few days ago I invited my mom to join the girls and me for lunch at McDonalds and then a visit to a local farm to take pictures in the pumpkin patch.  While we all had fun together, the patch was a big disappointment--mostly some rotting pumpkins.  But, the girls had fun so even though I didn't get any great picture opportunities, it was a nice afternoon.  The other night we also visited a Halloween event at the local first aid and the girls were thrilled to ride in an ambulance.  Saturday morning (during pouring rain but before hail, sleet and snow) we went to a Halloween/fall themed birthday party for one of Maddie's classmates and over the last few days it's been a treat extravaganza so it's hard to believe Halloween hasn't even happened yet.  I think we'll all be detoxing from sugar after tomorrow night (and after a month of a sore hip that has kept me from exercising I think I'll need to power through the pain and do it because oh my have I had a lot of candy and calories!)

 

 

 

 

This picture makes it look like there were a lot more lovely pumpkins than there actually were.  If the background was clearer, you'd see those were mostly broken or rotting pumpkins...

 

 

I originally started off making ghost cupcakes (mounds of icing on top with faces) but the type of icing I used doesn't hold up to humidity and rainy weather well and they were just kinda sliding down and off the cupcakes so I experimented with some other more 2-D designs.

Okay, off to bed since it's a full day tomorrow.  If you watch the Today Show, look for Beth and Prince Charming!  Hopefully Matt and Anne will see what we see--that he's the cutest kid with the cutest costume--and award him top costume honors!

PS Happy Reformation Sunday!  Good sermon at church, fascinating movie on Martin Luther and inspiration for Andy and I to spend more time learning about Luther and his teachings.  I'm so grateful that God used Luther to point the church back to Him in areas where it had strayed.  We were both overwhelmed by some points of stress this weekend and I think all of that helped us refocus a bit.