Pumpkin Carving

This year I made the controversial decision of buying only 1 carving pumpkin.  We didn’t grow pumpkins this year, so I picked one up.  Silje and David each wanted their own pumpkin, and had they be able to catch onto what was going on, I’m sure Elias and Solveig would have liked their own as well.

Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday, but I think carving pumpkins and dress-up are both fun activities, so we do those.  Unfortunately for the kids, I remember very well years past when I got them each their own pumpkins.  What ended up happening year after year is they don’t want to clean out the middle, or at least not past the first 5 minutes.  So I ended up carving out all of them after the kids’ initial thrill was over. 

So this year, we did a “family” pumpkin.  That way, the kids could take turns with the thrill of cleaning it out, and when they got bored, there was another kid on deck to try it out. 

Silje and David were not fond of my decision.  The first few minutes involved pushing and shoving and yelling, and separating.  They did eventually work together to come up with a design, and it was decided that David would draw on the eyes and nose, and Silje would draw the mouth.  Knut would use the knife. 

Elias and Solveig had a blast, and the older kids did too, after each taking turns having to leave the room to cool off and have a talk multiple times. 

It took awhile to get our teamwork going, but when all was said and done things clicked.  Knut and I both agreed that we need to do more of these “team” activities together as the older 2 seem to always be in constant competition.  It worked out really well.

We do non-scary costumes, and trick or treating with a few neighbors and into a trunk-or-treat event in town.  This year, I believe we have a mermaid, a knight, a Transformer (or Thomas the Train…he’s still deciding) and whatever I find in our old costume box that fits for Solveig…probably Eeyore.  We make it simple around here.  I buy costumes by the handful when they hit 90% off in the store, the kids play with them all year long, and on Halloween, they come up with their own costumes based off of what’s in the dress up bucket. 

And now we do a “family pumpkin.”  I’ll save my energy for Christmas.  😉