Our Halloween Tradition

Every year we always carve pumpkins. It's become a Halloween tradition for us. It's probably one for a lot of people. We did it when I was growing up. This year we were a little later getting to carving than we normally do it, but we got to it so that's what's important.

The plan was this year was for Rob and myself to carve as always then let Addison paint her pumpkin. 

There was just one small problem to my plan....Addison screamed like someone was murdering her every time we had her touch paint. I kid you not. I tried showing her but that didn't work. So I forced her to put her hand in the paint and you would think she was dying. She was screaming and doing that crying without breathing thing. 

So apparently painting was a no go for her. Good to know for the future. Finger painting is not a fun activity for my two year old right now I guess. So she was let out of her chair and off she went, hunting down her books and "bonding" with Stella. All while I was watching the pre-game for the World Series because I sure wasn't going to miss that game for anything! (Who isn't a little sad that the Royals didn't take it all? But who is proud and still going to keep cheering for the Royals next year too? I grew up a Royals fan and Addie will do the same - in fact she's already on a good start - every time one of the Royals players would come on the screen she would fist pump. That's my girl!)

Well she was bonding with Stella until she almost laid down on top of Stella who she out-weighs by 20 pounds, so Stella moved on. Addison then made her way over to me, I was done carving by then, and she sat on my lap and colored on the newspaper ads I had put on the table. (Did I mention she can say the word 'color' now?)

I'm not known for my pumpkin carving skills. I'm really really bad at it actually. Always have been and I'm okay with that. I can deal with that. In fact I have learned to embrace all that bad. Seriously. (Check out past posts here: 2011, 2012, 2013)

I warned you, right? Bad. I was angry about my inability to carve a pumpkin the first couple of years then I decided I was just going to go with it. That was my thing. My pumpkins were creepy in a weird and awful kind of way. Right? Sure...

Anyway, this year was probably the best pumpkin I have ever carved. It's not masterpiece but it's definitely the best. So I would like you to meet Henry...

And of course Rob's pumpkin is always putting mine to shame, but I have learned to deal. He also takes much much longer to carve his pumpkin. Maybe my thing is a problem in patience and not a problem in carving...

And of course since Addison decided that finger painting was the worse thing that has ever happened to her, we decided to just carve her pumpkin for her. I told Rob to go for simple and he went simple... and a bit creepy. 

It got even creepier after Rob added some red finger painting to her pumpkin's mouth. 

Look at that family. It's a handsome one, don't you think? We'll light them on Halloween as we always do. It's always a big hit with the trick-or-treating every year. I guess a lot of people don't carve and light pumpkins anymore? I don't know but kids love it. And we love it every year.