Pumpkin Fun!

Every year I have had good intentions of painting or carving pumpkins with Reed and it has never happen. I can't believe this is his fourth Halloween and we have never painted or carved pumpkins! So this year I was determined to make it happen no matter what.  I had it all planned out one night for us to have a pumpkin painting family night, but Josh got off work too late and Graham was already ready for bed.  So Reed and I just set up shop in the garage and Reed had a blast painting!  As with anything with a 3 year old it didn't last long, but the memories were made and we both had a lot of fun!

To my surprise, Reed insisted on painting a pumpkin for me and one for Daddy.  Sweet boy!  So this is my pink and purple pumpkin.

Reed wasn't to happy to be in one of my old t-shirts, but it was to cold to go without clothes.

"Cheese" 

These fake smiles, crack me up.

On to Daddy's pumpkin.  Mine was the small pumpkin and Daddy's was the big pumpkin.

Proud of his pumpkins!

The finished product, with Mommy colors and Daddy colors.

Then a few days before Halloween, I found this book pumpkin carving kit at Hobby Lobby and decided it would be fun to try.

Instead of buying new pumpkins, we just decided to recycle the painted pumpkin. 

Reed was excited to see what the inside of the pumpkin looked like.

This looks dangerous!

Yuck!

At first Reed was all about helping clean out the pumpkin....

But that quickly changed.  Can you tell he is saying ewe in this picture?  Luckily Daddy got it all cleaned up.

They were pretending of course....Josh's mouth makes me laugh.  Silly boys!

Then it was time for the pattern!  Reed surprised me and picked a random race car out of the book.  I thought for sure he would pick Mater and he didn't even pick Lightning McQueen.

Luckily we had these tools!  This book was only $5 and the tools were worth that alone.

In this picture you can tell that we have poked along the lines.  Then you take the pattern off and connect the dots.  It sounds easy, but imagine all those dots with no paper, it looked impossible.  Josh and I shared the poking process and then he took the boys for a bath and I started the actual carving.  I thought Josh would insist on having a turn at the carving, but he didn't.  I was trying my best to get it done before Reed went to bed, but it just couldn't happen.  I had to slowly take on section at a time studying the paper beside me and trying to make sense of the dots on the pumpkin.  It took a couple of hours, but I got it done, all by myself!

To my surprise it actually looked like a race car.

Even better in the dark!

Reed was so excited the next morning to see his race car pumpkin!



So now that we have started the pumpkin painting and carving traditions, hopefully they will continue for years to come!