Our Lil' Pumpkins

I wanted to fit this post in before Halloween, but because I've got tons of posts piled up, it gets its own day! Hurrah!

Pumpkin time! Dave's gonna get into the pumpkin carving and everything, so I figured I'd just share a few pictures and chat more about the painting. Yep, we did one large "family" pumpkin to carve (we asked Hadley what kind of jack-o'-lantern he wanted {a HAPPY one!} and what shapes he wanted for the eyes and nose, and whether he wanted it to have teeth, etc) AND took three mini "pie" pumpkins to the next level with some paint.

Just 'cause. Plus, he's never painted, so I figured it was time. (I know, I'm hanging my mommy blogger head right now. He had never touched paint!)

So, here are a few action shots of the pumpkin carving planning, reaction and the spooky fun effect...

Awesome, right? He picked the shapes (hence the animated picture of him with "round eyes, Mama!"). After staring at it for a few minutes, it starts to look like a Sesame Street Muppet. Totally appropriate.

Anyhoo, on to the messy stuff!!!

 
So, adorned in Daddy's old t-shirt, we plopped him into his "high chair" (the SpaceSaver kind), handed him a pumpkin and a brush and he went to town. Pretty much. I mean, I asked him what colors he'd like (purple and red for one, blue and green for another, and he was mute about the last choice, so we rounded it out with orange and yellow), loaded up the brush for him, and he much more enjoyed painting his hands than the pumpkin. But, then he'd massage the heck out of the pumpkin, so they each ended up with some amount of color.

I also gave him a piece of paper at the end to continue practicing his new-found artistic skills.

One of my favorite things about the painted pumpkins is that they add a nifty bit of color to the stoop -- AND they totally go with our new welcome mat. Hooray for happy accidents! I even got a teal pumpkin out of the deal! Plus, they make me grin when I see them. So cheery. So Hadley.

I ended up spraying them with several coats of a satin sealer since this type of paint tends to come off in the rain.  Oh, and you know I totally whisked him away to the bathtub immediately (Dave had it ready to go for us). It was hardly a mess at all, which makes me think we can do something like this more often. Probably for the next big holiday. TURKEYS!!!

To Pinterest I go...

Anyhoo, here's the final cheery product...

In the interest of full disclosure, our carved pumpkin bit the big one within a day of this picture. I think the humidity (and the fact that the pumpkin was a couple weeks old) meant its days were numbered. Oh, well. We had the fun experience and at least Daddy got a great picture for the ol' memory file. Now I'm REALLY glad we painted a few little ones!