Halloween and Pumpkin Time!

I remember when the music teacher came into my third grade class and in her scariest and deepest voice began to eerily sing: "Jack 0'Lantern,Jack O' Lantern, Big and Yellow! (she stretched her eyes open very very wide, spread her arms wide open as she sung this and then leaned toward us for the next line) "Jack O'Lantern, Jack O' Lantern,Funny Fellow! (She continued to quietly but eerily sing in a very deep voice and creep toward the front row of children) She continued singing and gradually increasing the volume..."Shining in the night...With your eyes so bright. Scaring all the witches with your "BOO!BOO!BOO!!!!"  We all loved it! (It must have made quite the impression on me for my old brain to still remember it!)
 There's something wonderful about the crisp air of Autumn in the South! I guess because it seems to take so long to get here in the sweet land of humidity where we live with our endless days of summer! Autumn is my favorite time of year with all of the beautiful colors that it brings. We love the days of October in particular here at our house. We look forward to carving pumpkins,jumping in great big piles of leaves, and sitting around the fire pit in the evening.The kids love to dress up for Halloween and go "trick or treating." They look forward to going to the pumpkin patch and the carnival at the Elementary School.For the past few years,Grand-daughter #1 and Grand-daughter #2 have had to enter the pumpkin decorating contest at their schools. We have worked on this year's two "masterpieces" the past two days. Tonight,we carved more pumpkins for our Family Home Evening and then sat around the firepit and read Halloween stories until time to get ready for bed.Everyone is exhausted from the hours spent cleaning out "pumpkin guts" as the little grandson calls the yucky insides of the pumpkins.

Here is Grand-daughter #2"s entry for her contest.Introducing "Strutter the Peacock" pumpkin!

These 2 are brother and sister. He doesn't like the way the pumpkin feels on the inside so he is supervising the job until it's time to carve.

 "YUCKY! Nope, I'm not going to touch that stuff on the inside!"

Grand-daughter #1 is working on her pumpkin for the contest at her school. She is painting the old bicycle helmet that we removed the outer plastic cover from. It was cracked and peeling already so we didn't really tear up anything. She is painting it red to match the design that she has come up with for her pumpkin.

Grandson #1 has talked the best pumpkin cleaning kid in the house to help him.

 Grandson #1's Carved masterpiece!

Grand-daughter #1's pumpkin for the contest! Introducing, "Chester the Cheetos Cheetah" pumpkin!

I promise that he is actually made out of 2 pumpkins even though he doesn't look like it. His nose isn't a pumpkin. It is half of a large plastic Christmas ornament covered in a child's white glove and painted orange. The white fur hides where the fingers of the glove were tucked in. A sock would have worked to cover the ball but we didn't have one handy at the time so we used what we had.

She loves how Chester turned out!

He even has a Cheetos in his hand!

 He even has Cheetos orange fingers!