"it doesn't make me garg"

You know Halloween is just around the corner when it's time once again to carve pumpkins! Tonight was our night! It rained ALL day today and so we were couped up inside and the boys have been a bit hyper and excited about pumpkins all day! I was relieved when it was finally time to start carving! Every year the boys choose what picture or character they want carved into their pumpkin. Until this year they asked for things like "pirates" or something fairly simple...this year, however, the boys went all out and wanted Yoda and Spongebob! Luckily for the boys their daddy is quite the artist and all he needed was to print off a template online and get to work! First things first, though, we had to clean out our pumpkins!!

Not surprisingly, Maddox dug right in. He was pulling fists of seeds and goo right out of his pumpkin. Ashtyn tried to use a spoon to remove his pumpkin insides and actually removed a few lonely seeds...but once Maddox pulled his first glob of stringy sticky pumpkin innards from his pumpkin and began waving them about for all to see, Ashtyn quickly jumped back from the table with a real life GAG stopping him in his tracks! Ash decided to let daddy clean out his pumpkin but Maddox kept right on pulling out handful after handful of yuckiness! Maddox said brudder was afraid of the pumpkin but he wasn't afraid because it doesn't make him "garg" as he puts it!!

Maddox also very much loved the smell of his pumpkin! He has been very into smelling everything lately (my hair, the insides of shoes, all food, etc) and the pumpkin was no different. As soon as the top to his pumpkin came off he began sticking his face as far into the pumpkin as it would go and sniffing with all his might! He tried to get Ash to smell the pumpkin too but after the "gagging" incident Ash wasn't to keen on pumpkin anything...

It was finally time for Brandon to begin carving! With templates in hand the tedious process began!

Believe it or not, Brandon's very patient and perfectionist carving took 3 HOURS!!! So, for the duration of the evening the boys watched a Winnie the Pooh halloween movie while eating some popcorn and then I gave the boys their bath and read a library worth of books while waiting for daddy to finish! It was so well worth the wait though...

OOH! OOH! Before I forget, I also got some really great news tonight! I found out that Maddox LOVES egg nog! YIPEEEEE! I grew up drinking egg nog with my family but Brandon hates the stuff and so every year I buy some for myself and try not to feel guilty when I drink all of it myself. This year, though, I will have an accomplice in my egg nog drinking!

At approximately 9:30PM, we were finally able to move the completed pumpkins to the front porch with candles lit inside for the boys to see!! They were very proud and so was Brandon! I can't blame him...the pumpkins turned out GREAT!!!! Take a look...

Yoda! Amazing huh???

and Spongebob! Pretty cool!!!

We had alot of fun tonight as a family! Maddox was brave and pulled gooey pumpkin insides out with his bare hands, Ash was a bit scared to touch his pumpkin but had a blast watching Maddox and daddy work and, of course, Maddox and I had our egg nog! Hope you all have a Happy Halloween!