Carving Pumpkins

Tonight was pumpkin carving at the Hathaway's home. I will admit, I am not a huge fan of carving pumpkins. It is messy and hard for the kids to do. BUT...I am a huge fan of having fun with the kids and letting them do the things they want to do. So, we got the pumpkins and knives out and went to work. A great idea I got was for me to carve the tops off and scoop out the seeds and then have the kids draw the face on the pumpkins that they wanted me to carve out. It turned out GREAT!! The mess stayed in one area and the kids were thrilled that they got to draw the face they wanted and they had a blast. Makena wanted hair on her pumpkin, I told her that I would cute some pieces out to make hair. She didn't believe me that it would work, but after I got done with her pumpkin, she was quite pleased and she talked the other kids into having hair on their pumpkin!

We are such mean parents and while we were cutting the tops off the pumpkins, we asked the kids if they have ever heard of "pumpkin mice." Of course they hadn't, so we explained that while the pumpkins are growing in the garden, sometimes mice will get inside and they live in them and eat the seeds until we carve them and take the tops off then they run out of them and back to the garden. Trying to tell them with a straight face was hard, but we managed. Makena and Kali were both afraid, but kept telling us that mice don't go in the pumpkins. After we told them, not to worry the mice only live in the biggest pumpkins in the garden (they picked the biggest pumpkins to carve) then they were convinced a mouse was in their pumpkin. So after I cut the top on Kali's pumpkin, she didn't dare take the top off. I took it off and told the girls, "wow, Kali, you were lucky. There wasn't a mouse in yours." She was relieved and started to draw her face on her pumpkin. Then came Makena's pumpkin. As I was cutting I told her I hit something hard, it must have been a mouse. She didn't want anything to do with the pumpkin. Once I took the top off and showed her there was no mouse, she was so happy!!! Now, Makena got this toy rat from school the other day, so I had Jarel get the rat and as I was scooping out the seeds from Makena's pumpkin, Jarel slipped the rat inside and I scooped it up, with some seeds, and placed it in front of the girls. Makena jumped and then said, "hay, that is my rat. How did it get in there? You guys were teasing us." It was fun, we all had a good laugh and the evening was a good one.


Tyler smiling for the camera.


Trying not to look at dad as he was taking the picture.


Makena drawing the face on her pumpkin for mom to carve.


Kali drawing her pumpkin's face.


Tyler and Makena.


Tyler was fascinated by the top of the pumpkin. He thought it was cool you could take the top off and then put it back on again.


Makena seeing what's in the pumpkin.


Makena and Kali making silly faces.


Kali, Tyler and Makena with their finished pumpkins.


Makena with her pumpkin. You can't see it, but her pumpkin has hair. We carved strands of hair into the pumpkin. That was her favorite part.


Makena thought it would be funny to take a picture of her with her pumpkin as her head!


Kali holding her pumpkin.


Tyler with his pumpkin. I tried turning the pumpkin around so we could see the face, and he did not like that idea. So we got the side view of his pumpkin.


Let us not forget about Hailey. She was a good girl and slept the entire time we were carving pumpkins.


Continuing to sleep on the couch.