Countdown to Candy

With just a few days remaining to the big candy gathering day, Ella and Lily had some work to do. The Sunday before Halloween, it was time to perform the rite of passage of Halloween – turn the pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns. This year was FUN. The girls were both active participants. They both drew their own faces on the pumpkins and helped clean out their gourds. Honestly, I figured Ella would shy away from pumpkin guts given her sensitivity to sensorial things. I figured wild child Lily would basically crawl into her pumpkin and get ‘er done. And once again, just when I think I have everything figured out, the girls surprise me. Lily scooped a few seeds out of her pumpkin, touched the goo and bowed out of the process. She spend most of the time hiding behind couch pillows being goofy. Ella thought the entire pumpkin gutting was amazing. Ella cleaned out her pumpkin almost completely on her own! Yay!

Both girls were pretty pleased with the final results. As were we, less scooping was much easier than previous years! The evening of Halloween however, we forgot to even light our jack-o-lanterns. Fail. I am always worried to put them on the steps because we have a narrow staircase and I don’t want to set any trick-or-treaters or our house on fire. Oops. Guess it’s just part of the experience. At least by keeping them off the step, my children were saved the horror of looking outside at their pumpkins only to see a squirrel eating the faces off of their beloved creations. So, I’ve got that going for me.