Carving Pumpkins

I was really (really, really) hoping to have a relaxing, slow pace weekend, just because I've had a crazy few weeks and felt like I needed a little down time at home. So far, I think we're doing a pretty good job at accomplishing that. Although, our idea of relaxing and uneventful is probably drastically different from your typical person, or... someone without two 2 year olds running around the house. There was actually a Halloween party tonight that we thought about going to, but earlier in the week when Andrew asked me to make a decision on whether we were going to go or not (because we would have to line up a babysitter, do the whole costume thing, etc...) I was having a busy day at work, had not slept the previous 2 nights and had extreme back spasms to point that it hurt to breath; truth be told, I just thought a quiet* (again, a relative term) night at home with the kids, in pajamas, going to bed early sounded absolutely wonderful.
We carved the kids pumpkins tonight. I think holidays are so much more fun when you have little kids around. Especially Halloween. This is a really fun age also, because they are really starting to understand the concept of things - and it's especially hilarious (and SO cute) to listen to them explain it to one another.

These are the pumpkins they each picked out at the pumpkin patch a few weekends ago... but we decided to hold off on carving them until closer to Halloween (from a 'we didn't have time anyway, even if we wanted to' perspective and, if you do it too soon and you have a few warms days, Yuck. You are then left with a pumpkin that has shriveled up features. And that's not cute at all.

We gave them each a marker to design their pumpkins face.... (Washable markers - which wound up really coming in handy considering what they had drawn would have been pretty much impossible for Andrew to carve.)

So they had fun drawing on their pumpkins, and then once they were all emptied out and cleaned up they told me what kind of face they wanted and I drew the faces for daddy to cut. Drew wanted a ghost and Emma wanted a vampire. Let me tell you, those little pumpkins are not easy to work with. First of all, they are pretty thick to cut through but it was difficult for me to actually fit 2 eyes, a nose and a mouth on such a small pumpkin. Luckily Drew's 'ghost' only required eyes and a mouth. So that was good.

(See what I mean about the scribbles - it would not have been the easiest to have to follow for carving....)

 Emma doing some supervising when Daddy was cutting out the face on her pumpkin. If he angled it a different way for cutting and she couldn't see what he was cutting, she definitely let it be known that she HAD to see the face as he was cutting it.

Drew's turn!

And.... Drumroll... our finished product!

(Not a great picture at all - - we had all of the lights off in the kitchen to light up the pumpkins and check them out and my camera freaked out and didn't know what to do because I didn't want to use the flash.) But whatever, you get the general idea. A ghost, and a vampire. Sort of.....

 We moved the pumpkins outside and Drew wanted to sit in a picture with them =)

(Actually, I think he was stalling because he didn't want to go back inside. He is not usually my picture boy. I have to sneak up on him to snap pictures otherwise he doesn't allow it.)

Drew caught a cold earlier this week and we spent a few days trying to keep him comfortable and get him better. It was the congestion, runny nose, scratchy cough, etc... So he was pretty much miserable. Honey acts as a natural cough syrup, so we were using that and a little bit of Tylenol and the vaporizer at night while he was sleeping. He's doing MUCH better now, it was a quick one. But of course he had to share the love with his sister. She came down with it last night, and she does not hesitate to express how unhappy she is if she doesn't feel well. So now I'm working on getting her all better.

Earlier today she was watching a movie in her room and I found her asleep on the floor. It was only a few hours after she had woken up this morning, and she napped for quite a while.

This is who I have sleeping next to me at the moment. Cutie pie.

Halloween weekend last year we were all hit with the worst stomach flu any of us have ever had in our entire lives. So I will gladly take this cold over that any day.

Goodnight... (I think I'm going  to join my little sleeping beauty and get some rest myself.)