Sunday, October 30, 2005

Patterns...

We spent most of the afternoon Saturday carving pumpkins. Nothing like waiting until 2 days before Halloween to get that done, huh? We had bought the pattern book, got some carving tools, news papers to put down under them, and the pumpkins - of course. So we finally get to look through the pattern book to find what everyone wants to do. Conor - he chose the wolf. Allie chose one that said "wicked" with a spider over top. Ceara was not with us on Saturday afternoon (she had plans with her Granny) but she chose hers on Sunday when she was here.

So, we set about taking the tops off the pumpkins and cleaning them out. What a gooey, slimy mess! Conor wouldn't even try it until he saw that I did it, then he put his hand in there one time and that was it! So - Jeff, Allie, and I set about getting all the seeds and slime out of the pumpkins. Once that was accomplished, we taped the patterns to the outside - the best we could considering it was a round pumpkin and a square paper! Jeff tried to talk Conor out of the wolf, but he would have none of it - he wanted the wolf and that was it. Stubborn - hmmmm, I wonder where he gets that from? :)

Jeff started poking holes through the pattern, and did it for about, oh, I'll say 5 minutes. Then he said "Katie, do you want to do this?" - So I took over poking all the holes. Allie was doing hers, too. Jeff got one of the smaller pumpkins and began to clean it out. He and conor worked on carving that one, while Allie and I worked on ours. Jeff got the eyes carved with Conor and he needed a break. He didn't come back. Allie got the WIC and 1/2 of the K carved and she needed a nap. So that left me and Conor. He tried a little longer to work on the mouth of his, but didn't get too far. He also decided he was done. So I carved the wolf and finished Allie's.

Then I cleaned up most of the mess and got Conor to lay down with Jeff (who was taking a nap). I then woke up Allie and we went to the store. On our way to the store, on the highway, a Trans-AM in the fast lane. He was a little ahead of us - we were in the middle lane. All of a sudden, we see this big square thing flying through the air. It hits the SUV in front of us and shatters, raining chunks onto us and the road. Very strange experience. Allie screamed because it hit the windshield pretty hard, but it did not crack or anything. I couldn't figure out what it was, but I knew it came from the Trans-AM because that is where it flew up from. So I caught up with him and looked over - he was missing one of the glass T-Tops. Mystery solved. I had Allie write down his license plate number, just in case there was any damage to my car, and we got off the highway and went to the mall. There wasn't any damage, just a scare.

Well, I got off the subject a bit, but I wanted to include that tid-bit. On Sunday, Ceara chose her pattern - the Cat with a spider coming down it's forehead on a web. Since Jeff was doing homework and I had to go and get Allie, I told her to go ahead and told her to tape the pattern onto the pumpkin and punch the pattern onto the surface. That her dad or I would help with cutting the top off for her in a little bit. Once I returned with Allie, she had most of it done, but then had homework to do, so Allie finished the punching holes part. Then it sat there.

Ceara had to go home to her Mom's house, and with tomorrow being Trick-or-Treat night, I wanted to get it finished and outside with the others. So - I cleaned it out and carved it. Then I put them all on the porch and lit them up so I could take pictures. See below:

Oh, yeah - Jeff "designed" the first one all by himself! :) He said he is thinking about getting a patent on it and selling it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You guys do the "funnest" stuff! The pictures are really good! And isn't it wonderful to have so much "help"!!?? Jeff is really onto something there with his special design! Who knew there was so much talent in our family!!
Or so much potential for pumpkin pies and breads and.......!!

I'm so glad nobody was hurt in the car thing, that must have been really frightening!