Pumpkins, Tweens & Drama

Carving jack-o-lanterns is a family tradition of ours.  Usually, it coincides with halloween.  Makes sense, right?  But because we seem to be in the "buckle up because this ride NEVER stops" phase of our lives, we were a little late this year.

Ok, a lot late.  Once halloween passed us by, it took a good two weeks to find a free afternoon to carve up some pumpkins.  And we happened to be listening to Christmas music that afternoon.  That was a little surreal, but we didn't let it phase us.  R was super excited about the whole operation.  But then, that's her M.O.  She gets excited about everything. 

We're thinking her pumpkin ended up as a monkey.  With a little pumpkin puppet man walking on his head.  Shaggy was in charge, that's the only explanation I can give.

J did little more than consult when it came time to carve his pumpkin.  And he drew in an ear on the right.  We decided this pumpkin looks rather angry and fierce, like someone you would never want to mess with.  Shaggy doesn't put much stock in the traditional happy pumpkin faces, as you can see.  But when you're given such a perfect stem nose, you have to use it.  No man made pumpkin nose could be better than this one.

J was more into making pumpkin faces with spikey hair using leftover snack mix from his birthday party.  At least it looked happy.

Which is more than I can say for the pumpkin K and S were in charge of carving.

Yes, our lovely pair of tween daughters were less than enthusiastic about the whole endeavor.  They actually complain LESS when we make them scrub toilets.  Go figure.

K drew in the eyes and the nose and left the mouth for S.  K is all about making sure she isn't carrying more of the workload than her siblings.  S, as you can see, is all about expressing her true feelings through her artistic endeavors.  I had to laugh when I saw their pumpkin face mock up.  It was so reminiscent of the sad face pictures S used to draw and slip under our door when she thought she wasn't getting the proper amount of attention during her time of sadness.  Oh, the drama!

This is my reaction to drama.  Not very dramatic.

But the drama dished up by these two tweens on this particular afternoon was actually pretty entertaining.  Shaggy and I couldn't stop laughing.  Maybe not the most sensitive parenting approach, I'll admit.  But the drama eventually faded into into laughter.  I'll let the photos tell the story.

I think this pumpkin carving episode will go down in our family record books.  It's certainly one to remember.

And I will always remember how much these pumpkins made me laugh when I looked at them sitting on my counter.  I think that was probably my favorite part of this whole episode.  Laughing at these perfect pumpkins.  Sad, angry and goofy.  So perfect.  How can we ever top this?  How can we ever come up with more perfect jack-o-lanterns?