Guts! Guts! Guts!

After weeks of endless begging to do it, last night we FINALLY carved our pumpkins.   Let me first get this off my chest.  I curse the person that came up with those pumpkin carving set thingies with the little kid "safe knives" that bend with the exertion of any minute amount of pressure, but there is a special place on my list for the person who decided to include the carving "templates" along with the carving tools.  What ever happened to carving a good ol' face on your pumpkin?  Why does it have to be an elaborate scene?

 

 

 Hailey digging out her guts.

 

 

Evan wanted to pretend that he threw up the guts into the pumpkin.  I told him it wouldn't really look that way in the photo.

I told Evan I would help him as long as he made a face.  I refuse the template.  He got right to work on his pirate pumpkin.

Spencer went the way of the "King Ghoul" pumpkin carving template.  You can see by his face how well that choice worked out for him.

The old school carvers (Evan and I) were done in no time at all.  With a pretty fabulous pirate.  Evan carved the eye, nose and mouth all by himself.  He just needed some help with the patch and the scar. The little kit carvers do work well, they just need to be A LOT stronger.

Spencer had to enlist the help of daddy.  Daddy had just finished carving out a witch riding a broomstick for Hailey.

The finished pumpkins.  In all fairness, Spencer's jack o' lantern is in fact a face I guess.  It was just a very elaborate face.

BOO!  Happy Halloween!

 

 

We have a big day tomorrow.  I am going on Spencer's class field trip to the cemetery in the morning.  I am sort of regretting my agreement to go at this point since it is going to be cold and rainy with possible snow tomorrow.  Tomorrow afternoon all the kids have their class parties.  I still have to finish my ghostly cupcakes for the kindergarten bash.   Then after school - Trick or Treat!  Unlike the past few years, it looks like this year will be a winter coat over the costume kind of year.  Bummer.  I love their costumes and I hate to cover them up.  Maybe we can bundle underneath somehow.  

Ballerina girl

Sunday afternoon Hailey and I went to a play about Angelina Ballerina.  She loved it.  It was a short play - less than an hour, but I think they have to keep it short in order to keep the attention of the tons of little ballerinas in the audience.  She had a ball.  Almost all of her little girl friends were there, so after the play there was a lot of hugging and giggling going on.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of all the little girls together, but their mama's cars were all parked in different directions. 

Speaking of cars, my little ballerina twirled all the way to ours.

It was a gorgeous day so we decided to take a little detour before heading home by way of the beach.  The beach provided the perfect landscape for more twirls and leaps.

I love days we can spend together doing girlie things that she loves, but I love this little ballerina girl more.

A gourd-geous day!

I kind of hate myself a little bit for that title, but the creative juices are just not flowing this afternoon.  

Sunday was a perfect fall day.  A perfect day for getting the kids out of bed, packing in the car and heading for a pumpkin patch up north.  Trent had already made plans to be there so the scouts could navigate through the corn maze (part of one of the badges they have to earn - not corn mazes, but directions in general).  Hailey and I had plans to go to a play later in the afternoon so we were going to stay home, but with promises to be home by two o'clock, we decided not to miss an opportunity to join in fall festivities.  Besides - we still needed to get pumpkins!

This picture is photographic proof of how Hailey managed to get her pink coat full of mud within five minutes of arriving.

Spencer brought along a tape measure just to make sure his pumpkin was the exact right size?  What the what?  I have no idea what he was doing.

I had to post this picture because just look at that tall drink of water.

It wasn't long before the perfect pumpkins were picked and paid for and we all headed over to the jumping pillow.

This farm grows every year.  I swear they must add two or three new attractions every fall.  I don't like when farms get too commercial.  The sheer amount of people drives me crazy.  We have learned in our parenting years that first thing on a Sunday morning yields an almost empty farm wonderland.

Ah...the petting zoo.  I really hate this part of the day, but the kids love it.  The hand sanitizer was flowing freely.

Spencer trying to lasso a fake steer.  I wish the kid jumping in the back was Evan or Hailey.  How funny would that have been?

It was a fun filled day at the farm!

Arty Sunday

On Saturday Trent took the kids to an art competition that was going on downtown called "8 in 8".  Eight local artists had eight hours to create a piece with only materials that were provided to them based on the theme "the future".   I believe they also were allocated fifteen dollars and ten minutes in the dollar store to get some additional materials.  One thing they purchased had to be included in their piece as well as three things that were provided to them by the judges.

 

The kids thought it was one of the coolest things they had ever seen and on Saturday night informed us that they wanted to have their own art competition the next day.  Sunday turned out to be a rainy, crumby day - the perfect kind of day to get your art on.  We got out all of our art supplies and announced to them that they would have one hour to complete an imaginary creature.  (Hailey has a school assignment to create an imaginary creature so I thought we could kill two birds with one stone with this little competition).  Spencer in his sporadic preteen angst decided he didn't want to do it, he chose to work on his Halloween costume with Dad instead.

 

Let the competition begin...actually it had been going on for some time at this point.

 

Spencer and Dad making faces on his LEGO man heads.

I got into the art as well by finishing up the sewing portion of the costumes. 

Evan's finished imaginary creature.  He did a great job.   No one would ever accuse Evan of not having any imagination.

 

 

Hailey chose to go with a flat piece instead of a 3-D creature (which pretty much ruined our two birds with one stone thought).  Oh well, just another excuse to get the craft basket out.

 

 

After the competition was over, Hailey decided she didn't want to be done crafting.  She filled her palette with more paint and went to work.

 

I love the banana split she made.  This one is set for a frame on the wall.

I loved the tree with the falling leaves too.

She decided she wanted to give this hand print one to her teacher.

It was a great day.  I love days that we can just hang out at home in comfy clothes and create things.  Days like that are my happy place.