Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween everyone!!! This is my favorite holiday! I love all the cute decorations and dressing up! It's so much fun! Today is also my sweet hubby's birthday! I love you Andy!!!

And tomorrow...is my birthday!!! :-)

Every year we carve pumpkins before Halloween. Andy's parents and sister and her husband always come over for the festivities. We design, carve, and then scoop out all the insides and send those home with my mother-in-law so she can bake us pumpkin pie! Last night was our annual pumpkin carving!

After school we headed to the local farmers market to pick out our pumpkins. And it was slim pickings....they hardly had any pumpkins left!

After lots of careful thought....the boys made their decision!

We loaded those huge pumpkins into the van and carried them home! Hayden insisted on holding his pumpkin lol!

The boys decided on their design. They drew them on the pumpkins. Cut the top off. And scooped out all the insides! Sawyer had way too much fun with this part! He had pumpkin up to his elbows before the night was over lol!

Then it was time to carve out the design! We let the adults handle the knives lol!

Here are the finished products! Sawyer and Papa designed his!

Hayden and Daddy designed his!

And then Cullen had to inspect of course!

Tonight we are trick-or-treating of course! And celebrating Daddy's birthday too! Sawyer is dressing up as Batman and Hayden is dressing up as a banana!!!

I hope you have a fun and safe Halloween!!!

QOTD: Do you like Halloween? Any Halloween traditions?

Pumpkin Carving Time!

Most of you know it but Halloween is my favorite time of year! I don't know if it has to do with the fact that it's the day before my birthday AND my hubby Andy's actual birthday but I love it! I don't like the scary stuff but I love the cute pumpkins, jack 'o' lanterns, ghosts, spiders, and black cats! I decorate my house for Halloween as much as I decorate at Christmas time!

It's a tradition in our house to carve pumpkins with my husband's parents and sister and her hubby. We live in the south and the weather is unpredictable in temperature this time of year (usually it's still pretty warm outside) so we are limited to carving our pumpkins no more than a few days before Halloween or they will rot. And if you've ever dealt with a rotten pumpkin then you know it is NOT fun...yuck! We also don't buy fancy carving kits or tools. We use a black sharpie, an ice cream scoop, and a sharp knife.

So here are the Road Runner Girl Steps to Carving a Pumpkin!

• Draw a rough draft of your design. This year the boys got to draw their own design. In the year's past my hubby would do it. But the boys are getting old enough and were so excited to design their own pumpkin carving design!

Hayden's Design

Sawyer's Design (drawn by Hayden...he just told him what he wanted)

• Draw the design on your pumpkin. Andy drew Hayden's design on his pumpkin and Aunt Katie (Andy's sister) drew Sawyer's design. 

• Cut off the top...dig out the mush and seeds. Yes this is the grossest part to me. But my boys love it! 

• Scoop out as much of the rind as you can for pumpkin pies! A lot of people don't do this part. They just get the guts out of the pumpkin and leave all the pumpkin goodness! We love pumpkin pie around here so none of our pumpkin insides get wasted! ;-)

• Carve...finally!!! As our boys are too young to handle sharp knives we do this part ourselves. ;-)

• Take pictures of the final product! This is probably the most important step! ;-)

So our pumpkins are definitely unique this year! The boys are super proud to see their designs on them! And that's what it's all about...getting the boys involved and having a good time! Mission accomplished!

QOTD: Do you carve pumpkins? Any steps you include that I left out?