Extreme Pumpkin Carving

I don't think Aaron can ever do anything the way "normal" people do. And I mean that in the absolutely best way possible. Morgan actually told us that he never really liked carving pumpkins before but the way Aaron does it is so much fun.

Sure, it looks pretty normal here, but we're just getting started.

 The appearance of the first power tool.

 

 And now, the blowtorch. Yes. I said blowtorch.

 And the vampire teeth enter the picture.

Notice the creepiness that the blowtorch added to Sullivan's pumpkin?

Yeah, we don't do silly pumpkins in our house. Only super creepy jack-o-lanterns.

 My powertool-loving boys.

 See the concentration on Sullivan's face? He should know how to run the blowtorch next year.

So this lovely spider pumpkin has plastic vampire teeth, nails for eyes and cornstalks from the garden for legs with wires for the joints on the legs. Pretty cool right?

 I call these two the vampire frog and the pirate.

 Sullivan's "creepy guy", Morgan's I have no idea, and my ghost.

 Another of Morgan's creations and the creepiest of all the pumpkins which is Aaron's.

 Yes, those are screws in the mouth and eyeballs. I might have to cover this one at night.

 Penelope's pumpkin on the left and Eleanor's "pirate princess" on the right.

 

7

Penelope turned 7 last week! We had fun celebrating with 7 pancakes in the morning, Aaron went to lunch with her at school, favorite dinner of Cajun shrimp and, of course, cake and presents.

My cute kiddos with an oh-so-excited nephew in the background. (I think he was really having fun, just acting bored. He is 15 after all.)

My Grandpa Cox used to buy us birthday cakes at Albertsons and bring it over and say "I baked it myself." (I so miss his laugh that would come after that statement!) My favorite cake that he would bring was a white layer cake with a raspberry filling between the layers, so I thought I would do that myself. But then I thought, why use store-bought raspberry jam when I can use homemade Nanking Cherry jam. Oh, it was heavenly. My wonderful husband who doesn't eat cake. Ever. Loved it!

I think that Penelope had a wonderful day and she is very happy to be 7.

I NEVER want to do this again!

I usually have no trouble picking out colors for my home but I have discovered that painting the outside of your house is a whole different story. It took me months to decide what colors to paint my house and over a month to actually finish the front. (I still need to do the back but that will have to wait until spring). The front of my house is just so awkward. Do you see the odd areas above the garages and doors? Anyway, I am still not sure if I like it or not, but it is done and it will not be changed for awhile. (Unless, of course, I come up with some brilliant color scheme that will work better, but I won't hold my breath. Matching that brick was hard!)

Before

 After

Fall!

We had such a lovely garden this year. I was really quite relieved when fall finally came because I was tired of trying to use all of the produce. I know! I can't believe I just said that either!

As you can see, our pumpkins did really well this year.  

We didn't even plant these small pumpkins. They were all volunteers from the compost. We were so glad we had them though. We donated pumpkins for Penelope's 1st grade class to paint, and Eleanor's preschool class and still had 40 left over, which we used for a Halloween party that we had at our house. It doesn't look like it but there were over 80 little pumpkins in the wheelbarrow.

We have had such a beautiful fall. Sure, we have had plenty of windy days but overall it has just been gorgeous! Eleanor and Penelope both played soccer this year and we had great weather. Morgan co-coached Eleanor's team and I coached Penelope's. And I have been absolutely terrible about using my camera the past few months so I have no pictures unfortunately. The same is true of our super fun Halloween party. My friend LaDonna was just appalled that I had not taken pictures, so I am making up for it now. :)

 Happy Fall!