Pumpkin Seeds

My husband may be the best pumpkin carver in the household, but I am the best pumpkin seed roaster!

Every year, Grant and Dylan really look forward to eating the seeds out of our pumpkins. I personally think they enjoy the seeds more than the carved pumpkins!

This year, my seeds turned out a-maz-ing! The nearly empty bowl proves it.

Here's my simple how-to:

Step 1:

Enlist the help of a little boy that loves all things creepy and gross. Let him clean out the pumpkin slime, so you don't have to!




Step 2:

Separate the seeds from the slime and rinse. This part is gross.



Step 3:

Spread seeds out on a paper towel and sprinkle with sea salt. Allow to dry for 24-48 hours.

Step 4:

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Toss seeds with olive oil and more sea salt. Spread out on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 1 hour.



Step 5:

Once seeds cool, store in an air tight container. If your family is anything like mine, they will eat most of them in one night.



I'll be baking batch 2 tonight!

Pumpkin Carving Take Two

We attempted to carve pumpkins on Monday night, but it didn't go so well.

We managed to get one pumpkin cleaned out, and Grant started to carve it. Our pumpkin carving knife broke, though, and he didn't have much luck with a kitchen knife.




We called it a night, because:

A) Lexie was disgusted by the pumpkin slime and didn't want to be anywhere near it.

B) Dylan was quickly growing bored.

C) Grant was quickly becoming frustrated.

Pumpkin carving night one...an epic fail. At least we got some pumpkin seeds out of the deal!

Last night, we tried again, this time with the proper tools. Grant did a fantastic job on both of the pumpkins, and the kids were very pleased!




Mental note: Clean that window!




Pumpkin carving night two? A success!

Visions of Halloweens Past

Halloween 2005:

Dylan was 11 months old. It was his first Halloween!



Halloween 2006:

Dylan was 23 months old!




Halloween 2007:

Dylan was a month away from turning 3, and it was Lexie's 1st Halloween, at 8 months old! I came up with a great solution for my sleeping baby. I put her in the baby bjorn, then zipped the sweet pea bunting over her!




Halloween 2008:

Dylan was almost 4, and Lexie was 20 months.






Halloween 2009:

Dylan was almost 5, and Lexie was 2 1/2.




It's amazing how much they grew over the years!

Face Painting

The kids love to get their faces painted! So when they found out that the face painter wasn't at the pumpkin patch this year, they were disappointed.

Our compromise?

Face painting at home!

I am not an artist, by any means! Every so often, I give Lexie some cat whiskers, just for fun. That's where my artistic talent ends.

With a little help from eyeliner and lip liner, Grant and I managed to bring smiles to their faces...





...and screams of joy!

Pumpkin Patch

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch over the weekend!



We have been going to this particular pumpkin patch since Lexie was born, and we look forward to it every year. It's hard to believe the kids were this little when we started going!

2007:




This year, as usual, we had a blast! It was in the high 60's and we went at lunch time, so the farm wasn't very busy. It was the perfect day for the pumpkin patch!

We picked the perfect pumpkins.













We checked out some creepy creatures!



We went through the petting zoo, and enjoyed seeing the baby goats and chickens. The goats were our favorite!



Dylan crawled through a straw maze.



Lexie tried, but it was too dark for her, so she met him at the end.



We ended our trip to the pumpkin patch with a hay ride!





It was a great day for the entire family!