memorable for sure

The night before Halloween we had Jill and Seth over for a backyard hot dog roast and to carve pumpkins! It was almost dark when we started (we should have thought that thru...) so we got right to dinner! I'm pretty sure Brandon did all the  hard work while the kids (and me and Jill...) sat around and reaped the benefits! Mmmmmm!

Of course we had s'mores for dessert! Seth doesn't like s'mores so he just ate chocolate and Ash doesn't like s'mores either so he toasted marshmallows for other people or just ate plain 'ol marshmallows. The rest of us, though, stuffed ourselves silly!

Then it was pumpkin carving time. Now, normally here I would tell a sweet and memorable story about how my family sat around smiling at each other, singing campfire songs and carving perfect pumpkins wrapping up a perfect evening...but that's not quite the fairytale we had this year. Ash is super sensitive to certain smells and almost the second Brandon popped the top off of the first pumpkin and the smell of pumpkin innards made it across the room Ashtyn was a bundle of nerves and tears. HE...BROKE...DOWN...!! Ugh. Ash ended up sitting outside on the back deck, in the dark, crying, gagging and FOR REAL almost throwing up (I thought for sure dinner was coming back up a couple of times...) and yet, at the same time, wishing he could come in and enjoy the fun. I felt bad for him and did my best to console him and coax him back inside while Maddox scooped goo out of his pumpkin with his bare hands and Brandon tried to work as fast as he could as he had four pumpkins to carve and wanted to get a move on! Needless to say I was sweating and on the verge of panic trying to keep everyone together while at the same time hoping Jill and Seth were having a good time amidst the chaos! GOOD GRIEF!! It may not have been a fairy tale but it was...a memory!

Eventually we sent all the kids to the sofa to watch an episode of Scooby Doo and have some popcorn while Brandon finished the pumpkins...

Our pumpkin carving creative director!

When the pumpkins were finished we had four awesome designs. Ash chose an angry bird, Seth chose an angry bird pig, Maddox chose a power ranger helmet and we did a special mini dinosaur for Gray. They look awesome!

It wouldn't be a complete evening without a series of HILARIOUS impromptu pictures!

I think they're supposed to be "scared" in this picture...

Wow! I'm not even sure what to say about this one. There are no words.

This year, we had one of the best Halloween/fall cookouts that we've ever had! Family, friends, memories, a lot of gagging and a lot of laughing! What could be better!?!?