halloween happiness

We settled down one pre-Halloween eve to carve pumpkins and watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, our yearly tradition.

Matt directed everyone to begin with a plan. Between bites of mud pie left over from Spencer's

birthday we drew our jack-o-lantern faces.

I had fun watching everyone get sticky with pumpkin slime, and Matt helped create our family's first princess pumpkin.

Zach's is the only pumpkin that survived our neighborhood delinquents. We were visited two nights in a row, kind of like we were a pumpkin patch for thieves. But moderate thieves who just took a few at a time and finished the job off by ripping out one of our porch zombie's eyes and tossing it in the dirt.

Just so you know, you little snot-nosed thugs, you crushed a little 4-year-old girl's Halloween dreams. Throughout the day she would suddenly burst into tears and say, "Why did someone take my princess pumpkin?" And it was a cute princess pumpkin, you little turds.

My friend Annemarie was visited by very thorough pumpkin thieves who completely cleaned off their porch. She and I regrouped, went and bought more pumpkins, and had a carving party with all the kids in her front yard. (Thanks Annemarie!) We both highly recommend doing this activity outside. This time I helped get into the pumpkin slime.

I will post a picture of Spencer's 3rd try pumpkin. After much effort and an internet search, it's the only one that passed his high standards. But he had fun smashing the other ones in our backyard. Then Gia ate from the pile and I got to clean up her barf later. Luckily small dogs equal small barfs. It was worth it for Spence to come up with pumpkin perfection. Congrats bud.