our sad pumpkin...

Guess what happens when you forget to buy a pumpkin to carve until the day before Halloween?  You get your pick from about five sorry looking pumpkins, that's what happens.  I told G.Q. we'd buy and carve a pumpkin on Thursday but come Sunday afternoon we still hadn't gotten the pumpkin.  We had been too busy to remember to buy a pumpkin and now the only pumpkins we could find, with out driving all around town to every store that might carry pumpkins, was a lonely cart full partially filled with five pumpkins.  Three of the five were 1/2 rotten and the other two had "ZITS!" and G.Q. thought they were not carving worthy. 

After a trip to two other groceries, we came back to the original store with the cart of sorry-looking pumpkins.  As we walked up the pumpkin cart I saw two ladies eying the pumpkins, too, trying to figure out which one might be the best.  Me, wanting G.Q. to get the best pumpkin swooped in and grabbed the two best while they were looking at a couple others.  Since we had already been there once, I knew which two were the best to pick from.  I held the tightly and made G.Q. pick from those two and made sure he was sure before placing one back in the cart for the ladies to swoop up.  Probably not my finest moment, but he's 7 and they were like 47, so him having the perfect pumpkin was more important, at least to this mommy.

Our pumpkin in hand, we paid, $1.67!  Not having the pick of the pumpkin patch was sort of forgotten about when I only had to pay $1.67 for the pumpkin.  What a bargain!  Yeah, I'm cheap, but it's for one day and we're going to cut holes in it, I don't think a big, perfectly round and blemish-free pumpkin for $9 is necessary. 

G.Q. forgot about the "ZITS!" and the sort of dark, birth-mark type spot on the pumpkin as soon as we got in the car and headed for home.  He was thinking about what side to carve and what design he wanted.  We voted on a silly face and he thought a tongue sticking out would be fun.  So a bowl to gather the guts, a dry-erase marker for designing, a safety knife and spoon to scrape in hand, we headed out to carve.  This might be the first year we've actually carved a pumpkin.  Weird, huh?  Years before we've painted faces, but G.Q. is old enough now to use a safety knife and cut through the pumpkin. 

It was fun to sit and snap pictures of the carving process.  G.Q. used the marker to create the design.  The marker was perfect because it it easily wiped off if he changed his mind and it was a great guideline for him while carving.  I was pretty impressed with his carving skills.  He stayed right on the lines and has one pretty cute pumpkin.  Can't wait to put a candle in it tomorrow and watch it glow for all the trick-or-treaters to see!