Pumpkin Carving 2009...

This is a tale of two working parents. These two working parents live in an area of the country that provides for some crappy fall weekends. These two working parents have three adorable children.


Two of these three adorable children wanted to carve pumpkins this year (because the two working parents were able to "forget" to carve them last year, only to be noticed by the oldest of the three adorable children after Halloween). The two working parents really don't like carving pumpkins, but they do love their adorable children. So with almost every weekend being rained out or filled with lots of stuff to do, the two working parents realized that the best day to carve pumpkins would be on Thursday, where it was SUPPOSED to be 70 degrees and sunny (it was in fact overcast and a little chilly).

So after gymnastics, we rushed home (I had picked up two gorgeous pumpkins at the local wally-world during lunch for $2.99 each...you can't beat that!) to begin the carving process. Because to make matters even more difficult, the sun sets at 6:30 PM. Gymnastics ends at 5:45...you can see where there is not much time to get this accomplished.

So we carved (more like everyone else carved and I stayed clean "in case I needed to pick Ryan up" - did I mention I hate carving pumpkins?). It got dark and the kids had barely cut anything. Finally, around 7:15 they were pretty much done, and the pumpkins looked great! There are no pictures of the finished products because it was cold and dark, and the youngest of the three adorable children was starved and squirmy, so he was taken inside while the others cleaned up.

John and our neighbor cleaned and sorted the seeds so that they could toast them.

This was *fun*, if that's what you call it :) I'm sure it will happen again next year, I just hope maybe we'll get at least one warm, sunny, fall weekend so that we aren't rushing it on some weeknight again :)

**"I don't understand why you will not let me put my marker in that pumpkin. And why on earth am I not allowed to get my hands in all that gooey stuff?"

**I don't think he bought into the whole pumpkin carving thing...he didn't like to touch the stuff, and he kept his helmet on so that he could escape quickly and return to bike riding.


**This could have been an opportunity to feel guilty about the two-working-parents thing, except our neighbors are also two working parents, and they were right there with us, carving in the dark!