5th Annual Pumpkin Carving

Here are the pumpkins from our 5th annual pumpkin carving with the Anstines.  Of course, the origin of this night dates back to a time when all three little girls were held prisoners in their NICU isolettes.  We, as their parents, can't imagine a year without the pumpkin carving because it always serves as tangible evidence of our incredible luck.  We always make comments like, "We should send this picture to their NICU docs because not in a million years would they have predicted this!" 

While this night is full of remarkable milestones, for the kids it is just plain fun.  Because they are getting older, I decided to serve a spooky dinner by candlelight.  The girls thought it was great fun.  Decorating the table and finding as many candles as we could muster up was a good time for me and my oldest.  Although we don't have a great picture, it turned out to be a very festive.

After dinner we jumped into the carving.  All of the children thought they were perfectly capable of carving their own pumpkin and were a little disappointed when the parents said, "NO!"  Here is Lila Grace reinforcing our decision to keep sharp objects out of the hands of little children.  While she tried to put a pumpkin carver through my heart, she quickly made up for it with a sweet smile for her picture with mommy.

Savannah worked very hard at her kitty pumpkin. She drew the face on paper first and then transferred it to her pumpkin. This year she was able to cut some of the pieces out but still needed help. Savannah was proud of her kitty because it was her design and not one off of the computer - mommy and daddy are very guilty of stealing images off of the computer.

This year Adeline sketched her own design on her pumpkin.  Daddy had to use a little hand over hand to make sure the Sharpie didn't go flying but the design is all her own.  She was a very proud girl and had some pretty spectacular daddy time.  Lately, all she wants to do is be attached to her daddy and carving a pumpkin with him was one way to ensure he would pay attention to her and only her.

Lila ended up with two pumpkins.  She had been saying for week that she wanted a ducky pumpkin but was clearly unsatisfied with the duck I carved.  Luckily, daddy saved the day and found a way to make an Ernie pumpkin for her.  It certainly was the best of both worlds for her when she realized that she had Ernie and his rubber ducky for pumpkins.

It was an evening of fun.  The kids enjoy it every year and the parents certainly do as well.  Not to state the obvious but. . .  carving pumpkins with your children is much better than carving pumpkins for your children - as was done the first year because the little girls were fighting for their lives in the NICU.