Halloween

Yay for pumpkin carving time! As far as holidays go Christmas it my thing. Halloween has never been a huge one for me, although all the candy definitely boosts it in popularity with me! Even with it not being my top holiday there is one thing I always look forward to doing, carving pumpkins! When Brandon and I were dating our first Halloween together, we carved pumpkins, and have just kept on doing it since then (almost 6 years now!). The only year we missed out on the pumpkin tradition was this last year, because I was still living in Kansas and he was at Tech School in Texas! I was pretty sad about not doing it, but was just excited that come November 1st I was moving to Texas to live with Brandon again! So fastforward to this year, and 2 weeks before Halloween, Brandon asked me if we were going to carve pumpkins this year. Of course I had been thinking about it, but Brandon hadn't said anything, so I thought maybe he didn't want to. Plus I hadn't seen anywhere to buy them on base (of course how I missed the huge bins of pumpkins in the Commissary is a total mystery!) When I told Brandon I would like to do it, he said "well good because I was planning to take you to the pumpkin patch on Sunday, then go to Cambridge to the Holiday Fair" YAY!!!! I have the best husband ever! I was so excited and couldn't wait for Sunday to hurry up and get here! We always had gone to Dillons and bought a pumpkin from the bins. So I was excited to actually got to a pumpkin patch and pick one out! So Sunday morning he headed to the pumpkin patch, it was pretty small, but had a good selection (well in my opinion at least) and it was pretty reasonably priced for something on the economy (which is usually really expensive)

It turned out to be a gorgeous day to be outside! And let's face it I am amazing at picking perfect pumpkins so mine was the best!


Then of course Brandon put me to work with the wheel barrel carting our pumpkins around! Gosh making the pregnant woman to the heavy lifting, what's up with that?


Ok, so confession time...this was the only time I even touched the wheel barrel, but it is so much funnier to say Brandon made me do it all!

We ended up with 4 pumpkins, one for each member of the family, Brandon, me, Roxy, and baby Smart! Fortunately the pumpkins survived the ride in the trunk to Cambridge and back that day! We stopped at base on the way home to buy some carving kits...and of course what did we find? They were sold out, like everything you see on base. Yet again we were reminded of the golden rule here in England, if you see it, and want it, you buy it right then, because it wont be there in an hour! Luckily my neighbor Jen had thought ahead and bought some the week before and let us borrow hers!


What did I tell you, I found the perfect pumpkin!


Well good try Brandon, but let's be honest here, mine is better :)



Peanuts pumpkin! If only we knew if peanut was a boy or a girl at the time! Oh well just a few more days!!! We didn't get a before shot of Roxy with her pumpkin because our dog is a bit of a spaz and we...ok maybe me, were too excited to get going to try!

My job is always to clean out the pumpkins, because my bit tough fire fighter husband, HATES to reach in and grab the gooey seeds! No fear Brandon, Laura has you covered! Also if I look a little tense in the picture, it is because I AM! Just moments before my husband has knocked my camera off the table! He was taking the picture of me to prove that it was ok and he hadn't broke it! Hmm like father like son....both have made me nervous with my camera, then made me pose for a picture looking freaked out!


We started off with Roxy and Peanuts pumpkins first, since they were smaller, and the designs easier...or so we thought! Here are the final results of our little one's pumpkins!


That right, our baby is already a wildcat baby!!! Go K-State! Now the picture below I am pretty darn proud of, because as I mentioned before our dog is a bit of a spaz! Roxy was laying on the floor watching us carve the pumpkins, waiting for us to drop something for her to eat, and I decided I would try to sneak her pumpkin next to her and take a picture of her with it. Brandon doubted my mad skills, and said there was no way I could get the pumpkin next to her, and get a picture before she moved!


Booyaka Brandon, not only did I get the shot, but it was a darn good one too! Now she did jump up the second I took the picture but hey, there she is with the pumpkin! I win!

I had the worst time deciding what to do with my pumpkin! I couldn't find anything that was easy but cute to do. Finally I decided I would do a ghost, as long as it was a happy ghost!

I think it turned out pretty cute, and definitely looks like a nice happy ghost!

Brandon knew what he was going to do long before we even had bought the pumpkins! The Punisher!


I have to give it to him, it did turn out pretty cool! Plus when it was all lit up, it was pretty awesome...but mine was still cuter :)



So the last thing to do was take our creations outside and light em up!


Yay or family of pumpkins!


The mom and dad pumpkins, and below the baby pumpkins!




Of course in my excitement to just get the pumpkins and get them displayed I didn't think through the fact that they had to last over 2 weeks to be our on Halloween night when all the trick or treaters came! Alas our pumpkins just couldn't quite hold out that long! Brandon's caved in on itself first, and on Halloween night mine followed suit...but our two little pumpkins held up pretty nicely! Plus the kids all thought our nasty rotten pumpkins were pretty cool :)

Just a side note about Halloween on base...it was CRAZY! Trick or treating was supposed to be from 6-8pm! We bought 3 large bags of candy thinking we had plenty and would have leftovers...my favorite part! Yeah kids started showing up at 5:30, and by 6 it was obvious we wouldn't have near enough candy, so Brandon made a mad dash to the shopette on base and bought 3 more bags of candy...unfortunately that only got us to 7pm before we totally ran out! We learned some valuable lessons, first living on base be ready for lots of kids, second don't let the kids pick their own candy they will take a handful, and lastly hide one bag of candy back so you have leftovers!