Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Our Little Pumpkin

We're starting traditions pretty early in our little family. Santa started his annual visits last year. We can't WAIT for Hadley to have his first big turkey day feast (we already know he'll eat everything that goes before him, so we'll give him a little of everything...I'm strangely excited!). And, for Halloween, we've got a lil' costume planned for his day at the sitter's (his grandma) and a later trip to my parents' for a quick trick-or-treat visit. (We think he's too young to do the regular trick-or-treating thing. We're also up-in-the-air about the fact that, in the future, we'd like for him to experience these traditions and the fun and excitement of trick-or-treating, but wish there was a way to lessen the gluttonous candy-based intent behind the whole thing.) He also wore a giraffe "costume" last year, but being only three months, he just kinda...sat there.

But, we already started the spooky tradition this weekend. Meet Hadley's twin...


Dave watched our lil' monster (not really) while I cut in and scooped out the brrrraaaaains, brrrraaaaaiiiins!! By far the suckiest part of the job. I sketched a not-too-scary face that looked just enough like Hadman - he's got two teeth that are fully in flanked by two teeth that are partially grown.


I used a safety pumpkin cutter thingamabob and started hacking away before Dave started hovering. He finally asked if he could help -- I didn't realize he was interested, yay!

We strapped Hadley into his Space Saver chair and gave him a quickly-drawn pumpkin to "color" (he poked it with the orange before we realized he was more interested in trying to eat the crayon than color...ya win some, ya lose some), but he also intently watched the creation of his jack-o'-lantern. That's when I snapped these pics.



I put a real candle in to see what type of glow we'd created...not too shabby. (We've gotta track down our LED mini-candle to put it outside.) Oh, and Jasper stood watch...


And, now, the scary part -- putting it outside on our stoop. I'm a tad terrified that it'll get stolen and smashed. Yeah, we have hooligans in our area. It's never happened to our small pumpkins in the past, but this one may be too cute for those brats to resist. *fingers crossed* It's lasted a couple of nights so far.

Oh, and for the record, I wasted the seeds. We already had some on-hand (purchased, wop wop) and I was pretty tired from toddler-wrangling to go through the process of sifting through the brains/guts. I'll roast 'em in the future (and undoubtedly post a recipe, hee hee), when the monkey can actually eat some.

We also made some popcorn and drank some cider after the baby went down for the night, while watching an awesome Halloween documentary. That's another tradition for Mama and Papa that we do before almost every major holiday -- watch a documentary on its meaning. Dave has tracked down several very high-quality ones, for Halloween, Christmas and Thanksgiving. We're geeks and we know it. :-)

What about you? Kids or not, do you cut into some pumpkins? Or roast some seeds? Cider? Popcorn? Caaaandy? Do tell!

6 comments:

  1. We do the Whole Shabang! We pick our pumpkins at a farm (usually Cullens bc its local), carve (the adults do most of this as the kids think the "brains" are too gross to touch, unless they're being thrown at each other), I roast the seeds (of all pumpkins - 4/7 usually - and freeze the ones we won't eat in time), Trick or Treat!! Yes! I do not allow "scary Halloween" in my house, happy and fun only - so we do group costumes, and if the parents don't dress up the kids still match up with a theme (this year Batman and Robin - and the fun part, the 4 year old is Batman and the 9 year old is Robin ... I humor myself haha!). We picked a neighborhood a few years back that looked decent and had actual sized blocks, we allow the kiddos to trick or treat for a few blocks on one side, cross then head back to the car. We only do that one neighborhood, not moving from town to town like so many - we allow the boys 1 piece of candy when they get home after checking out the "loot" (small in comparison to most, I'm sure) and are in bed by 7:30 (bedtime). I understand from many parents we're "too strict" with our kids and "not fair" because even with a 5 year age gap we have the same boundaries and rules .... BUT ... I don't really care what they think. :) haha!

    You will have so much fun when Hadley is old enough to understand it all!! I remember each year w my boys when they finally had that excitement (age 3 for both of them) .... priceless!

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    1. Thanks so much for sharing your Halloween experiences!!! I can totally see us being just about as strict with our kiddos (and I think it's totally "fair"; when you hear "that's not fair" it usually has nothing to do with actual fairness). I don't understand the skipping from town to town (um...greedy much?) thing. And I want him to experience trick-or-treating and actually enjoy the very rare treat of candy, but there's such thing as TOO much.

      The only Halloween night I remember staying up for as a kid was the one where we had TONS of snow falling. It was a weird season cross-over and I remember drinking hot chocolate with Mary while we "ooooed" and "aaahhhed" about the snow. The November 1st snow day made it easier to deal with the lack of sleep. ;-)

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  2. I'd love to see the giraffe costume! :)

    My parents were pretty strict about Halloween too and I never felt like I was suffering or anything . . we were allowed 2 pieces of candy a day through Thanksgiving and then the candy disappeared.

    I just posted out pumpkin on the blog this morning - we went the easy route and did an Angry Birds pumpkin with plastic pieces from Lowe's.

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    1. I'll have to see if I can track down a picture with the giraffe costume! :-) It was really more of an "outfit" but, gosh darn it, 'twas cute!

      We were allowed to keep it (but Mom was pretty big on one or two pieces a day). Not sure when it disappeared...quite possibly when we got sick of it. Halloween candy during the Christmas season is kind of a downer.

      I saw!!! Such a cute Angry Birds pumpkin!! I hope it didn't tempt anyone to throw it...in hopes of knocking down various structures. ;-)

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  3. Aww, I hope he had a fun Halloween. Next year will be even better when he is a little older :)

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    1. It was a fun time, actually! We hit up Grandma's house (quickly before the traffic got crazy), then came home and ate pizza (gasp!) while Daddy handed out candy and comic books. I set up a window so he could see the kids coming to the porch, which he L-O-V-E-D. I almost think the other kids would distract him a heck of a lot more than actually walking around getting candy. Man, he's social. Next year will surely be interesting!!!

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