Pumpkins!

Only in Texas do kids decorate pumpkins in shorts and T-shirts. Sigh... the cooler weather will be here eventually, right?? Happy fall, y'all! :) 

Cody and Jaden had a variety of opportunities to decorate pumpkins this year. First of all, the same day we visited the Oil Ranch, the boys asked to paint the pumpkins they had received there. Mommy brought out the acrylic paint, covered the whole table, and then chuckled when the boys spent less than 5 minutes painting a simple face on their pumpkins. 

These pumpkins (affectionately named Halloween and Orangey) quickly became dear friends.

Cody and Jaden wanted to pose in numerous pictures with their pumpkins...

...and even take a few of their own pumpkin photos.

 

A couple weeks later, Ms Amanda from church gave each of the boys a pumpkin that was leftover from an Early Childhood event. Jaden and Cody were thrilled and happily painted their new friends.

All 5 of these pumpkins (including Adley's pumpkin from the Oil Ranch) were the objects of a variety of upstairs games in the following days, including this pumpkin jail.

The week before Halloween, Jaden and Cody received yet another mini-pumpkin from school. (Thankfully, one of them could replace one of Cody's that had fallen and cracked.) These boys were quite pleased with their large pumpkin family!

We did go out eventually and buy a couple of larger pumpkins that we could use for carving. Cody and Jaden each picked out a free carving template from the pumpkinlady.com website (highly recommend this site!). Cody and Daddy worked together to carve Clement,

while Mommy helped Jaden carve Cain.

Honestly, the carving process was actually a little rocky this year. We had a few tears when one boy struggled to use the carving knife independently, more tears when the other boy pinched his finger, and then both boys refused to do anything that would require them to touch the yucky pumpkin guts. On top of all this, Adley wasn't happy at all being quarantined to her jumper, so we had an adventure trying to keep Adley from stuffing the newspaper in her mouth. Ooof! At one point, both boys were just sitting on the couch watching the Praise Baby video that we had put on for Adley (who of course was much more interested in the pumpkin process) while Mommy and Daddy were carving away in the kitchen. Hmmm... 

In the end, though, all the hassle was worth it when we saw just how pleased Jaden and Cody were with their (our??) final jack-o-lantern faces. The boys were so excited!

Cain and Clement were a hit!