Farm Animals & Jack-o-Lanterns, Oh My!

On Monday's Pumpkins, Guts & Gloves, I promised a few more pictures, so I'm back with a handful.

 

This cow kept moo'ing at me every time I walked up to her (?him? I didn't check! lol) and just cracked me up.  There were chickens, roosters, pigs, piglets, cows, ponies, oh my!  And we had a blast visiting with them on our trip to the pumpkin patch!

And on Sunday, it was time to get busy carving those pumpkins we brought home with us.

After seeing the kids drawing complicated faces with a million cuts (too many for their small hands), Dad drew a sample face on a piece of paper for them.

And then proceeded to use his sample for his own pumpkin.

 

My boy used the sample for the mouth on his, adjusting the teeth.  Apparently, pointy is scarier than square.

This was the first Halloween that he wanted a 'scary or horror' costume rather than a superhero.  Though he ended up being a cool alien, he greeted every door he trick or treated at saying, "Braaaiiinnnsss" and looked a bit more like a scary zombie alien rather than the little green man it started out as.  He loved it.

And my girl's sweet pumpkin. She had me making the turns at each corner, while she cut the straight lines of the eyes and nose, but by the time she reached the mouth, she was a Jack-o-lantern cutting pro and doing it on her own!

 

(Clearly I need to learn to shoot better in low light, but I'll get there!)

I went with Linus and the Great Pumpkin this year. A little simpler than years past, but when I saw the image on Creative Type Dad's pumpkin stencils, I was blind to all others.

We had a fun Halloween!  How was yours?  What does November hold for you?

Me?  I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this year and though only on to the second day, loving the writing and community surrounding the word frenzy!

Linking up with some rockin' awesome Wordful/ish Wednesday peeps!

Seven Clown Circus, Parenting by Dummies, Project Alicia, Live and Love...Out Loud, Angry Julie Monday

Pumpkins, Guts, & Gloves

Pulp oozes around our hands, slipping, sliding through fingers.  Wearing the pumpkins’ guts proudly, like a new fashion statement, we reach inside for more.  Seeds go in one bowl, innards in another.

Checking out what's next at the pumpkin patch, hand in hand...melt my heart.

At the pumpkin patch, we surveyed our options.  It wasn’t long before I noticed the enormous orange ball in the green wagon.  One down, three to go.

“This one’s perfect!” Our boy is waving us down.  As my husband pulls up with the four wheeling wagon, he inspects the find.  “Nope, looks like there’s a hole in the bottom kiddo.  You’ve got to look all around it.  We don’t want a rotten one, right?”

Two kids, bubbling with giggles run for another possibility.  On their way, they get distracted by a black cow.  Giggles give way to whispers before they call us over to show us what they think are baby cows sleeping under a piece of siding lying across the ground.  When the baby critters awaken, emerging to chow on a small broken pumpkin, it’s easy to see that they’re cute baby piglets.

And we’re all smiling as the kids run off to climb the hay bale pyramid, drive the old tractors, and try to feed the ponies some hay.

“Come on kids, let’s pick our pumpkins!”

“This one?”  She lifts a little pumpkin high in the air.

“That’s too small to carve.”

She picks out three more tiny pumpkins that nestle perfectly in her sweet little hands as we continue to tell her they’re too small to get seeds from.

I remembered the one she had brought home from school.  “Actually, go ahead and get a small one.  You can carve the one from your field trip and paint the little one you get today, okay?”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!”

Adding a pumpkin with a smooth front, perfect for a cool carving, for me and one without any holes for our boy and we lugged the heavy wagon to the front to pay.

A few dozen more camera clicks and we climb into the truck to head home, thinking about all the seeds we’ll have to roast, after we wear our fashionable pumpkin gut gloves.

I'm linking up with JDaniel4's Mom's Halloween Traditions.  We finished carving our pumpkins last night and I'll be sharing those pics on Wednesday.  In the meantime, you can see some of past years' pumpkin carvings here and here!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Halloween pumpkins get their Jack-O-Lantern ON!

I'm sure you're sick of Halloween already, but I have one last post on the subject for you! 

We have a history here of having fun with the carving of our pumpkins each year.  I had hoped to share some more Halloween pumpkins' past, but after reloading drivers today, we've discovered our scanner has gone kerplunk, kaphooey, kaput!  And all the rest of our previous carved pumpkins are on film & print (aka not digital), so that will have to wait some more until I can make them one with the digital era. :>

And this year, we had some firsts!

This happy little pumpkin is wee girl's and she gutted her pumpkin & half of mine for the first time this year (which made her Dad really happy since he usually does the majority of the pumpkin gutting each year). 

And a few days before we had even gone to the pumpkin patch to carefully select each of our pumpkins, she had drawn & colored the pumpkin face that she wanted on her magical little pumpkin.  She brought her design to her Dad & he carved it for her.  Can I tell you she was so proud & excited to see her sweet happy pumpkin face design come to life when it was carved out?!

Now this Jack-O-Lantern is my boy's.  As I was prepping my pumpkin, he was carving his (another first....his first solo carving!) and said, "I'm carving an old fashioned pumpkin....like from 1980. That's a long time ago!"  Oh my.

Hubby prefers 'scary' pumpkins & carved this face.....the slug crawling up the face likes it! lol  Hubs & I both like pumpkins with cool stems.  I forgot to get a lighter shot of mine, but I loved my stem...all curly with dried curly cues hanging from it.  Speaking of my pumpkin.....

Fun carving again, this year, I had!  (There's my feeble attempt at Yoda-ease!)  My hand hurt when I was done, but I was happy with the results.  What do you think??

Hope you are having a fantastic weekend!  What's happening in your part of the world?

Harry Potter & some {wand}erful wizard worthy magic!

Thanks to a kind Auntie loaning our sweet boy the Harry Potter books & movies, once he read the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone & saw its movie full of magical images, he knew exactly what he would be this Halloween!

And so a parade at school on the 29th & trick or treating on the 31st brought Harry Potter through these parts. Thankfully, we had advance notice of the wizard's arrival and were able to prepare a special wand.

Father & son took to the task of creating a wand for the special wizard and grabbed the mysterious mini tree growing from the ground that had been hacked down recently.  The magical, sweet son got his first chance to use a knife (supervised, of course!) to shave off most of the bark.

His Father (aka Hubby) & magical, sweet son whittled it into shape.  They both did a bit of hand sanding and the adult in the operation then torched the end and a bit of the handle's edges.

Stain was rubbed in, wiped off, and the whole wizard perfect wand was given a clear coat.

Add some brass wire, wound around at the top of the handle and the base of the tip, secured by tucking into a pin hole and its ready for Hogwart's.....er, um, I mean a visit from Harry Potter himself.

I'm no wizard, but I do love that handle and the magical, sweet son Harry Potter enjoyed it too!

Hope you enjoyed a wee bit of magic that zapped us this Halloween!

   

 

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Disclosure:  I was in no way compensated for this post.  Harry Potter book & dvd links are affiliate links.

10 Reasons why I am Ecstatic about {Fall} - Writer's Workshop

Time to play/write along with Mama Kat and this week, I'm choosing prompt #5, "10 reasons why you’re glad it’s Fall." 

Hmmm.....I don't think that's good enough.  How about 10 reasons I'm ecstatic its Fall?!

1)  We have a kidlet birthday to celebrate!  And just as soon as I cringe that one of my babies is getting another year older, I smile & celebrate how they've grown & see the happiness across their face.

And there is happiness whether I stock the party with store bought decorations...

...or hand crafted decorations for a custom themed party.

2)  And before I blink my eyes, mini pumpkins of many hues are scattered about the house (depending on wherever whichever kidlet moves them!) and we're off to the pumpkin patch, a favorite family outing, to get the big ones.

Red wagons, chickens, a pig, sheep, half dozen old tractors to sit in, a hale bale pyramid that lets them climb to the skies, random farm kitties, and of course, oodles and oodles of pumpkins to ooo and ahhh over, pick and choose, and come home with four to six perfect for us pumpkins.

3)  And the night before Halloween, we gut, seed, and carve those plump pumpkins.  Most end up with jagged smiles or sinister faces, but at least one gets a detailed carve every year.  C-3PO and R2-D2 was mine!

4) Kidlets in costume!!  We've had The Great Carrot, a monkey, Cat in the Hat, race car driver, Mr. Incredible, Snow White, Buzz Lightyear, Aurora, Batman, and Cinderella parade these halls.  And rumor has it, we will see Harry Potter and either a scary witch or another Aurora trick or treating this year!

5)  November brings on cravings for edible pumpkin treats.  Scrumptious and savory roasted pumpkin seeds from all those carved pumpkins are enjoyed by all and since a kidlet went GF/CF (gluten & casein free, among other things that have been removed), close to three years ago, we try new holiday recipes every year.  Last year, it was delicious GF/CF Pumpkin Bread, which will make an appearance again soon enough.  And this year, I will finally make that GF/CF pumpkin pie!

6)  Cool, crisp air combined with rustic deep reds, golden yellows, and screamin' oranges make me giddy!  Then when those beautiful leaves fall, its a race to see who gets to crunch it.  In my past, I've even hobbled on crutches to get the best crunchy leaves and now, must admit, I've even cut off one of my own kidlets to get to that crunchy leaf first....but, where there is one crunchy leaf, there are many to go around. :>

7)  Thanksgiving!  We first arrived at our own perfect turkey recipe pre-kidlets for a Four Musketeer gathering here back in 2001.  And in the years since, it has been refined & made absolutely moist & scrumptious.  I'll let you in on just one of our turkey secrets......instead of butter on top of the bird, Hubby (who is ever so kind for cooking Thanksgiving dinner every year!) puts a couple of slices of bacon on top for the duration of the roast.  There are a few other perfect & moist turkey secrets, but we'll save that for another day! :> 

8)  And after turkey day, we love our family outing to pick the perfectly tall Christmas tree!  I request (demand?) a tall one every year.  And the kidlets ooo and ahhh and giggle and cannot contain their excitement, which always make us smile just as brightly.

9)  And then there's the magical twelve days in stampy, inky, creative, crafty land that make so many of us giggle with childlike giddiness that is brought to us by Tim Holtz himself...his annual 12 Tags of Christmas!  Here are a few Tim inspired & guided tags that I made to pair up with dozens of smaller ones for teachers' Christmas gifts last year.

And as if the inspiration alone that Tim provides wasn't enough, he does giveaways all twelve days....and last year, I won one of them!!  Look at all those beautiful fabby Tim products!! :>

10)  And there's another kidlet Fall favorite that is mine as well because of the great thoughtfulness behind it.  An Auntie & Uncle always kindly got my kidlets a chocolate advent calendar every year.  But, once the GF/CF diet change was made, the regular chocolate advent calendars were no longer edible for one kidlet.  After a little research, she found a GF/CF one from Peanut Free Planet!  Wooohooo!

I could probably list another fifty things I love about the Fall season.  But, I'll spare ya & stick to the ten! :>

What are your Fall favorites?

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, and more Pumpkins!

Pumpkins, anyone?? Or I suppose I should more accurately say, Jack-o-lanterns, anyone?? I have jack-o-lanterns from '06, '07, and '08 to share. Where's '09?? Sitting on our porch, still waiting to be carved. Yikes! I better get to it!! If you hang in here with me through this post, the last carved pumpkin is one of my favorites.......

Can someone who is more skilled with a camera, please tell me how I took this first shot?! Everything around the pumpkin is in focus, so I assume I didn't move the camera. This is my pumpkin from 2006 and the faces jumping out of my pumpkin have me, three years later, still wondering what happened!


Above, from left to right, is the pumpkin we carved for our infant daughter that year, our son, and Hubby's pumpkin.

2007 pumpkins carved up to light the way for trick o' treaters. Above was baby girl's...sweet, sweet, sweet.

Here is my pirate ship pumpkin! I was so dismayed to discover that I do not have a single great shot of it. It is far more detailed than this pic shows. The cut out on the flag is a skull and bones. The pumpkin on the right is our son's and his first time carving!!

Look how gnarled and wrinkly this pumpkin is! No wonder Hubby chose it for his own. He likes the scarier side of Halloween and has to tame it all down since having kidlets. But, he still wears his scary mask, aka Uncle Charlie, every year and loves handing out Halloween candy while I take the kidlets trick o' treating!

And here comes 2008.........

These cute eyes were peering out from our front window ledge.

Some toothpicks came in handy here for holding the centers of the 'B' and 'O's for a "BOO" pumpkin.

Another standard pumpkin face, one that always sends me back to the faces my brother and I carved with Dad every year as a child. Mom helped scrape out the pulp and Dad helped with the carving. Thankfully, that is one tradition I've changed up a bit with our family. Hubby is the best pulp scrapper outer ever!! And so, he empties the pulp and all those yummy seeds to roast from almost all of the pumpkins................he can empty five pumpkins in the time it takes me to unload just one!

And here's one of my favorite pumpkins that I've carved.....



C3PO and R2-D2! This one about killed my hand and I was in danger of breaking those fine lines many a time, but it was so worth it. Our kidlets loved it! I love listening to the pumpkin discussions outside, before the door bell is rung.

Pics of the pumpkins that were carved with the faces of Darth Vader, the Old Hag (witch from Snow White), and Elmo are all on film and as I was arguing with my scanner, I was unable to get them up. But, there's always next Halloween, right?

I have an Optimus Prime (Transformers) and a Minnie Mouse celebrating Halloween here this year. They are anxiously awaiting costume time and the chance to show them off to the neighborhood. Do you celebrate Halloween? Are you dressing up? Any kidlets transforming into something cute, sweet, or ghoulish? I would love to know what you are up to tonight! Happy Halloween!!

Have a Hauntingly Happy Halloween!!

With mere minutes before Halloween begins (although, if you check your friends emails, Facebook status updates, or are there yourself, you'd think tonight was Halloween for the sheer number of Halloween parties occuring!), I thought I would share a Halloween card of my own.

Now, since I have a mighty innocent Halloween on my agenda, here's my confession for the holiday.....this card is not from this season. I made it way, way, way back in 2007. But, I did get inspired by the rockin' blogger and creator, Taylor Vanbruggen at Taylored Expressions!! Thanks, Taylor!!

After digging around her blog a bit, I found the original post (scroll down to the second post) that I was inspired by. You know something strikes a cord in you when you remember it over two years later! :> And I knew I had the perfect stamps to CASE her creation with. I used my ooo-llll-dddd All Night Media stamps from back in my early stamping days of the mid-'90's and my Vintage Label stamp from Purple Onion Designs that I love as much today as I did when I bought it then!!

So, you are probably wondering, why two pics of the same thing, same angle, etc.??? Right??? Back in 2007, you know, waaaaayyyy back when, I wasn't worried about taking pics for blogging or anything other than remembering what I made. And since my son and I were arguing, debating, conversing, contemplating, and disagreeing on which pic to use, I put both up. He thought it was a "Before" & "After" shot, simply because the windows 'lighting' (colored in with Prismacolor colored pencils) was so much...more in the second pic. As he put it, "See!! The lights are on in this one and they aren't in that one. Its a "Before and After" shot!!" I haven't made him watch too much HGTV, I swear!!!

Hope tomorrow is Spooktacular for anyone celebrating Halloween and if you are not, well, then I hope your day is simply fabulous!!!!! If you are getting your spooky groove on, what ghosts and goblins, or fairy princesses are gracing your door?