Though I am a chronic underachiever when it comes to involvement in modern childrens' lives, when it comes to Halloween, I always covered the bare minimum, with costumes (I used to make them), parties, pumpkin patches, school parades, decorations, scary baking, and of course, trick-or-treating.
But one classic Halloween tradition always eluded me, until today. Gabriel just returned from science camp today, so I figured that rather than making him lug his sleep-away duffel bag a mile home, I'd pick him up from school, and retrieve his siblings while I was at it. This would give us a stolen afternoon to carve jack-o-lanterns out of the pumpkins they kids bought at the pumpkin patch last weekend.
I haven't actually done this before, but I channeled Aunt Laura and Uncle Ryan's experience last year, asking the kids how they'd done it. I cut open and cleaned the pumpkins...but that was it. The kids took it from there.
Julian, brimming with ideas.
Gabriel, exacting and methodical.
Katrina, full of enthusiasm. She had such a great time.
Especially with Katrina, I made sure to do as little as possible, mostly showing her how to use the tools, but she did her own pumpkin completely herself. This is what happens when you're the 3rd child. I doubt it would even have occured to me to let my oldest six-year-old carve his own pumpkin, but the third six-year-old pretty much has to.
Kid jack-o-lanterns -- and really, kid jack-o-lanterns. I'm so proud of them. All on their own!
Not bad for my first time!!
10/26/12
No comments:
Post a Comment