In my defense, I do have a monster of a toddler who keeps life extremely interesting (to say the least), and a five-month-old baby who is teething - both of which have been extremely high maintenance of late - not to mention my now 12-year-old and her 6th grade drama, AND the fact that (counting this weekend) my husband has had three concerts with The Las Vegas Philharmonic in the last month. I have thereby basically been left to my own devices in trying to maintain control of my sanity. I simply can't stress enough how thankful I am that I have managed to keep it together well enough to ensure that my my poor children have been bathed and fed properly. ;)
Anyway, I digress. Tomorrow is Halloween, and with my husband's crazy schedule, he wasn't able to join us for Family Home Evening (FHE) last night (he had to do a make-up lab class that he usually has on Thursday night, which he can't make this week due to a rehearsal with the Phil).
I realized yesterday morning that we still hadn't carved pumpkins, so I picked up a few at the grocery store so that the kids and I could carve them for our FHE activity. Also, I had decided that for dessert, I would make Zachary's favorite fall treat (chocolate pecan pie) and would have it ready early so that he could eat it with us when he woke up before going off to school.
For dinner, we had homemade Zuppa Toscana soup, which turned out super yummy (I've made it several times before and it's one of our family faves). Everything was going as planned. My family was fed and dessert was a hit.
After my husband left for school, the kids and I busted out the pumpkins and chose the pattern we wanted to carve from the kit I bought at the store. Madison chose one that says "Eek" and I chose a pattern that said "Wicked." I know that neither of those patterns seem too ambitious, and Madison and I were both talking about how awesome our carved pumpkins were going to look once we were finished and the candles were lit inside.
In hindsight, I am realizing that there must be some sort of Halloween amnesia that kicks in as soon as I get the idea to carve pumpkins. There I was with all of these ideas of grandeur, but once I started in on the cutting process, I was quickly reminded of the reality of how horrible I am at carving pumpkins.
Usually, Zach is there to help us with the really difficult sections, but since he was at school, I had to really focus hard on not cutting the letters too closely, or pushing the wrong part of the words through the pumpkin.
So...
This is how my pumpkin was supposed to look:
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| A pic I took of the sample on the carving kit. |
Cool, right? Yeah...
This is how MY pumpkin turned out:
Haha. As you can see, it does NOT say "Wicked." I got so frustrated after pushing both the "i" and the "c" through the pumpkin on accident that I turned the pumpkin to the backside and just carved out a simple face (which I drew on first with a black marker. haha). I know. Epic fail.
The night wasn't a complete bust, though. There was enough Zuppa Toscana soup left over to freeze for another night's dinner, AND the chocolate pecan pie was super yummy. And Madison and I did have a ton of fun carving the pumpkins, even though she ended up following suit and carving a face in the back of her pumpkin as well. Haha.
This just goes to show how valuable Dad is in our pumpkin carving endeavors. Hehe.
This debacle does put me in the mood to watch The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown though. Oh, how I LOVE this time of year! ;)
Happy Halloween!
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Actually, I like your pumpkin better. It's classic awesomeness.
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