Pumpkin Carving

Lex was pretty excited about the pumpkin carving. But Lex is pretty excited about most things that involve tools.

 We finally carved pumpkins a few days ago. Well, the kids carved pumpkins. I sort of watched and tried to prevent any major knife injuries. I only carve a pumpkin about every three years it seems. Probably because it usually doesn't seem that fun. I don't even help my kids do theirs. I like them to have ownership over their projects. And again, just not really that fun. The process must have been more interesting than the final product because as I was downloading the photos I realized I don't even have the necessary shot of all the finished pumpkins all lined up with candles in them. Guess I'll have to take that tomorrow.

Lex spent the first part of the time just trying to smuggle all the pumpkins away so he could more easily throw them to the ground and smash them. He was really annoyed I wouldn't just let him smash all the pumpkins. Although now that I think about it smashing them doesn't seem any more crazy than chopping them up with knives. 

He was annoyed about the no-smashing-all-the-pumpkins rule until he realized everyone had knives. Then he spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get himself some knives. He got really mad when I'd take them away. When he showed up with the pizza cutter I finally just let him go at it. It's probably terribly unsafe, too, but he did not end up bloody. (This evening at least.)

He was quite proud of the work he was doing on the pumpkin.  And I have no idea why it didn't occur to me to give him one of the tiny little pumpkin carving tools we have in the kitchen drawer.

Luckily Lex has a big sister who looks out for him since his mom is a slacker. Azia was disturbed Lex's carving wasn't quite up to her standards so she did a little artist conference and he showed her where to put some eyes and she helped him out.

This is really Azia's type of thing. I can imagine in a few years she might come up with some pretty cool pumpkins.

Israel is a bit obsessed with the Dukes of Hazard this week. So...his pumpkin had a theme.

And no, I didn't do a great job of keeping all the sharp knives away from him. Every time on of the bigger kids would put one down he's grab it. Fooling him like we did the last few years with the butter knife didn't really work. He knows how much better the sharp ones work.

Poor Zoran got a bit of a late start because he had a break down when he realized Azia had the best pumpkin and the one he wanted and no other one would do. (Even though he hadn't said anything to anyone about this earlier and Azia was already carving the pumpkin.) He did eventually get over it and choose another.

This is Azia's pumpkin. She said it's a football player. He's crying (blood) because he doesn't get to play very often. Israel told her if that was some kind of rude joke about him he was going to get her back. She said it wasn't. She might have been lying. Good thing they both have short memories.

They carved so long apparently it became night before they finished.

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