LINSWORLD

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

This is the first year that I have been in overall charge of pumpkin carving, without the more creative presence(s) of Jess and Rachel around. And I have to say that between the three of us, Sam, Caitlin and I didn't do a bad job!

First we gouged out the innards!!! Sam and Caitlin LOVED that job. I particularly loved how their hands had to touch every surface/fabric/facial feature in sight with their pumpkin covered mitts.

 

Next we designed faces. Sam was very specific about how he wanted a roaring lion. But he had me to help him so the roaring lion idea was dumbed down to a face with triangle eyes, an oval nose and gappy pointy teeth. If there is a lion out there fitting that description, please come forward.

Sam loved being able to carve this himself with the nifty little pumpkin carving tool from Asda! (which I only found when  was clearing out the kitchen).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Caitlin decided that she wanted to do hers herself and fought my guiding hand ALL the way. It's a mercy that one of us wasn't impaled on the carving tool! But hey, it was all worth it - TaDa!!!

 
Here is Caitlin with... KANGA Pumpkin!

 
And Sam called his Mr Scary. No repeats of last year's Gordon B. Pumpkin. I guess neither of them looked like a Thomas S.

 

 
 

From four scary pumpkin faces....
 to just two!

And to get into the spirit of the occasion (Praise be to Poundland, saviour of the needle-inept, purveyor of all Halloween Tat!)

 
 
Say NOTHING!

Oh and to all the husbands who think it will be fun to put a plastic spider complete with cobweb, on top of the butter in the fridge? It's NOT funny, your wife WILL have a coronary, and you may end up with it in your sandwiches the next day!

Happy Halloween!

It's PUMPKIN Time Again!!!

More than school photos, more than Christmas and birthday photos, I love to measure the passing of time with our tradition of going to Hill Farm to pick our pumpkins each October. Sam and Caitlin always love going there and despite my resolution each year to actually buy all our vegetables from their farm shop, it still remains the only time each year that we go. But nevertheless, the farmer remembered us and asked me if I'd brought my camera.  (Maybe we are the ONLY ones who go pumpkin picking with a camera - maybe he remembers me as being the wierd, camera obsessed mother with the pumpkin children...) Last year I didn't realise the camera batteries were dead so I piled the children back into the car while the bemused farmer looked on, went back home to get new batteries and returned to choose the pumpkins.

This was last year. (On looking back at October 2009 I see it was such a busy month - I was a more dedicated blogger back then - that I neglected to blog our pumpkin pics. So somewhat belatedly, here's one! Or two!)
 
 

Due to the early frost this year they had picked most of their pumpkins, all but a very few and put them under canvas in the field to stay warm and dry. So this year, rather than meandering through a sea of pumpkins (and sloshy mud)  Sam and Caitlin are clearly visible in each photo and don't blend in!

I remember the second time we went and Caitlin was so unsteady on her feet that she actually fell off one pumpkin that I'd attempted to sit her on (anything for a photo, I'm so cruel!). see it here! www.linsworld.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/10/index.html 

And just to see how time passes, here's the FIRST time.

www.linsworld.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/index.html

Unbelievable how time flies.  And so to today.

 

 
 
 
 

 

Lest you think it is an optical illusion that as the children are getting bigger, the pumpkins are getting smaller, Sam and Caitlin decided to choose "baby" pumpkins this year as everyone wants the biggest ones and the baby ones are all sad and forlorn that no one wants them. (nothing to do with the fact that none of us EAT pumpkin; that the only nice pumpkin thing we've eaten was made by Susannah about 6 or 7 years ago; or that I HATE the gloopy insides...)

 

 

 

 
... to be continued in October 2011!!!