October - Halloween festivities

Pumpkin Carving - This was our first year to carve a pumpkin. Usually we go to a pumpkin patch and pick out a "special" pumpkin that we then have to carry around the rest of the day. So typically we encourage Grantham to pick out a small pumpkin. This year with Isaac being so young and the weather being VERY rainy we just went to Walmart to pick out our pumpkin. We decided since the picking of the pumpkin was uneventful we would try our hand at carving one.

The picture below is Grantham cleaning off the pumpkin, preparing it to be carved.Daddy did the honors of cutting off the top of the pumpkin and cleaning it.At first Grantham was hesitant to put his hands in to help clean out all the goop.Caution did not last long and he dung in shoulder deep.Grantham found a "carving" knife in our kitchen draw (it was actually a decorative cheese knife -much like a butter knife- we received as a gift from a neighbor for Christmas last year, but he called it his carving knife). He talked about how he was going to carve the pumpkin with it for a week. We thought "What is the harm? He can't really cut a pumpkin with a butter knife" Boy were we wrong. Grantham stabbed that knife so hard it went completely through the pumpkin, leaving a pretty large cut that we then had to use as a part of our pumpkins face:) Never underestimate a determined young boy! Mommy got to do the honors of carving the face on the pumpkin.Our finished product - not too bad for our first carving experienceI am apart of a medical alliance here in MS and each year they throw a few parties for resident and fellows kids. This was a really fun part of this year's Halloween party. Instead of the kids "trick or treating" they dumped about 30 bags of candy on the floor and let the kids dig in. Most of the children are younger than Grantham and this turned out to be the highlight of the whole party. The picture below is of the candy being dumped as the kids waited and watched. yGrantham wasted NO time diving in. He filled his treat bag to the top!John and I started a family tradition of dressing up each Halloween. We have been Cowboys, Doctors, and Pirates. This year Grantham choice the costumes. Can you guess who we are?The Incredibles of course! Grantham loved telling everyone that we were going to be a whole family of "Supers" for Halloween. We even recruited a neighbor girl to be Violet (the older sister Grantham (I mean Dash) doesn't have. If you haven't seen the show the Incredibles you should rent it and have a good laugh at our expense - we hardly look like the characters - although I am proud of how the costumes turned out. One more quick story, Grantham on the morning of Halloween told John he needed to "muscle up." (You see Mr. Incredible is a very strong/large man) We were going to "stuff" John's arms and legs but decided at the last minute against it.A really cute picture of Grantham fighting a "bad guy."Even Isaac dressed up as Baby Jack Jack We had so much fun as a family of Supers. Grantham did a great job of choosing our costumes. I don't know if we will be able to continue the family tradition, but this year was a big success!

Below is another blog I added today. I am trying to catch up.