
We went to the grocery store on Wednesday and there was one lonely pumpkin sitting in the big giant box and Ethan really wanted it because it was big so I bought another pumpkin. When we got it home I realized that it didn’t have much of a stem and there was also a slightly molding soft spot. I knew it wouldn’t be good for carving so I spray painted it black and let Ethan paint it. He wanted me to draw a face for him, but he directed me where to put all the features and what shape and size they should be. Then he did all the painting of the face by himself. He was so proud of it that he wanted to take a picture and then we immediately had to put it on the porch so anyone who came to our house could see it.

Jake has been so busy this month with his singing group and also co-directing the school Christmas play that I wasn’t sure when we would have time to carve the pumpkins. Finally I decided to just let Ethan choose one of the pumpkins we bought for he and I to carve on Thursday afternoon. He chose the littlest one and said that we were carving it for Olivia since she is the littlest one in our family.
Every year he seems to thoroughly enjoy taking the guts out of the pumpkins and then playing with them. I think it is probably his favorite part!
The finished product, Ethan even helped me cut everything out with our little carving tools.
Since Jake is now on four day work weeks we decided Friday would be the best time to carve pumpkins all together. We got up, ate breakfast, and started carving.
Here are Jake and Ethan just getting started with the carving. Jake is making a scary face, and Ethan is making his new favorite picture taking face (it’s his pout-pout face, for anyone who has ever read the book pout-pout fish).
This is Ethan and I carving his pumpkin with the design he chose for his oddly shaped pumpkin.
We didn’t want to leave Olivia out, so we brought her exersaucer into the kitchen where she sat and watched us pretty contentedly for about half an hour before she decided she was tired and I put her to bed.
We carved Ethan and Jake’s pumpkins in the morning and then we had to stop go to a funeral. When we got back from the funeral Jake decided we needed some more pumpkins and knew there was a family selling some out on their farm. I told him to pick up two or three and he came back with six! They were selling them for about half price and of course he couldn’t pass that up, so he bought three big ones and three smaller ones all for only eight dollars.
This is Ethan and Olivia posing with the pumpkins while still in their nice clothes.

Here are all of our pumpkins after all the carving was done and we set them outside. I think Jake had a little too much fun…
The left side of the porch:
I did the moon/haunted house, Jake did the singing ghosts, the O, and the portrait of Olivia, and Ethan and I did the little tiny pumpkin. 
The right side of the porch:
Ethan and I did the two on the bottom, and Jake did the two on the top. 
So many pumpkins!

So many guts!

So much fun!