Carving the Pumpkins!

Before I share our family carving pictures, I should mention, I got to carve pumpkins with Sara's class yesterday, which was such a blast, and so fun to work with a group of 6 little first graders-Sara included!  We did a packet all about pumpkins across several areas of curricula, and then carved away with their own designs-the end result was great, and the kids-and I-had fun!

So I sat down with the kids this afternoon to carve our family pumpkin-first time carving experience for the two little boys, and honestly, a fairly new experience for the other kids since we just don't carve pumpkins in our family on a yearly basis!  The kids were hesitant to touch the guts, although they all did it at some point.

I told the kids to give me their best disgusted faces, and this is what i got!  

 Trying to use the tools to get the guts out-nothing works quite like a human hand (as opposed to a zombie hand?  Bad choice of words, Rachel).

 Getting Brave!

 Look at Jackson's face!  He was grossed out!

 I took on the carving job and let the kids move onto painting the second pumpkin!  We put stickers on it of bats, leaves, and letters, and then painted the whole thing black.  After it dried, we took the stickers off to get the final result-pretty fun!

Look at Jackson's AWESOME coif!

Love how James is watching Sara!

 Poking out the pieces as I cut!

 And there's the finished product with all my helpers (minus the two big kids, they didn't do much!).  i wish you could see the pumpkin design a bit better-it was a creepy tree with a ghost face. It didn't take as long, by far, to finish-I remember it taking hours as a kid!

 A better picture of the pumpkin-and again, I love Jackon and James' faces!

 What's up with JD?

 There's the final painted pumpkin!

Happy Halloween!

We've had a super busy day today, and of course, trick or treating only makes it busier!  The kids get to excited about this holiday, the anticipation almost rivals Christmas! 

Karianna has hit a milestone: she is old enough to do her own thing on Halloween!  I guess I don't know that for sure, I admittedly don't know what I'm doing as a first time parent of a pre-teen!  But we gave her permission-upon copious amounts of begging-to hang out with her best friend, Braelyn.  She left us around 4:30 to go to a ward Halloween party with Braelyn, and then go trick or treating with her and her family. She was dressed as a medieval princess, and while she didn't want to smile much, I thought she looked just beautiful! 

 The rest of the kids, of course, stayed with us to trick or treat around our neighborhood!  We took off out the door around 6, and by 6:45, they started to say they were tired and wanted to go home.  Our kids have never been marathon trick or treaters, and that suits us-especially Jared-just fine! Jackson's pumpkin got so full, he kept dropping it! He walked the entire time though and showed no fear in walking up to each door and saying trick or treat.  We were able to go to the Lautenschlagers afterwards, as is tradition, and trade most of the candy for ice cream cones.  It was a fun night with zero mishaps, and a lot of happy kids!

The crew who are young enough to stay with Mom and Dad! Two ninjas, Rapunzel, a Skeleton, and a Minion.

 Sara looked just lovely as Rapunzel, and we had a lot of fun weaving flowers into her hair!

 Somehow I managed to leave without taking a picture of Jordan, James, and Jackson, but here's JD's ninja pictures-he'll have to represent all the boys!

 Love this little Minion-perfect costume for him this year!

 Eating ice cream at Grandma's house and watching Hocus Pocus....

 Oh Jackson....give him a potentially messy item, and he will make it ten times worse!

 Sorting all the loot by color, size, type, whatever rule the kids came up with!

And thus wraps up another Halloween!  The year seems to be flying by-Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here before we know it!

Wirey

Jordan is incredibly strong and wirey-the kid is all muscle!  He was doing handstands tonight and was able to hold this up for a long time before kicking is feet out like a street dancer or something. He's pretty incredible that way!

We Got Ourselves Some Costumes!

Tonight we were able to go to the Lautenschlagers' ward party at Falcon Hill Park, which was a lot of fun in and of itself.  It was so great though seeing the kids all dressed up in their full Halloween costumes for the first time!  

Jackson is a Minion! PERFECT costume for him this year, and he did a GREAT job keeping his hat on his head! 

 

 Sara is a beautiful Rapunzel!  This dress fit her perfectly, and it was a ton of fun weaving flowers in her hair and dolling her up with make up!

 James actually picked a costume from our dress up bin, and he was so intent on it, I just went with it! He makes a super cute skeleton, and I am ecstatic that he gets to go trick or treating this year-last year, he was still recovering from heart surgery.

 Both Jordan and JD decided to be Ninjas--again! We adjusted their costumes from last year just a bit, and they were set to go-and sparring the entire time!

 JD chose the red to match his shoes ;)

 Karianna made the most beautiful medieval princess-I loved her costume, and she looked so beautiful with make up on and her hair all coiffed! she is starting to get too old for Halloween-she wasn't as excited to get dressed up in her costume, and I am a little sad this day has come!  Nonetheless, she had a great time at the party tonight, was adorable with her siblings, and at the end of the day, looked grown up and like my little girl at the same time.

 Cute, cute kiddos!  We are ready and rarin' for Halloween night!