Pumpkin Carving 2024

Happy Halloween! 

We're taking a break from book recaps today for our annual pumpkin carving post! This year's pumpkin carving was extra-fun and extra-chaotic because four of our favorite girls are staying with us for a couple weeks. They (and their parents) are in the middle of flipping a house—in another state!—to move in to and so we naturally demanded that they come stay with us while their parents are in the midst of closings and packing and moving and unpacking and all that goes along with it. The last time we got to carve pumpkins with these fabulous nieces of ours was back in 2020 so it was about time we did this again.

This year, we decided to throw paint into the mix and what we ended up with was one pumpkin just carved, no paint. Two pumpkins just painted, no carving. And three pumpkins carved and painted. It was a mess, but it was a fun mess and I hope these girlies always remember Halloween 2024 with Uncle Cody and Auntie Hannah. 

Uncle Cody came in clutch with a silly dad joke. We all had gotten busy taking the tops off our pumpkins and cleaning them out, with Uncle Cody on hand to assist, but his own pumpkin was nowhere in sight. The girls and I kept pestering him sweetly asking him when he was going to start his pumpkin and what he was going to do, but he said he was waiting for the inspiration to hit. When it finally did, he ended up painting his pumpkin and finishing before all of us. Typical. I decided to commemorate this special year by carving 2024 and four hearts to always remember carving pumpkins with our four sweethearts.

Our creative girls ended up with an upside down melty ice cream cone, Agnes and Lucy from the Despicable Me franchise, and Bluey. 

I absolutely adore how these silly, colorful pumpkins turned out, and I wouldn't trade one second of the mess or the chaos or the resulting cleanup and exhaustion. These pumpkins may end up on our Christmas card. The brainstorming and giggles and paint-covered hands (and faces!) are memories I'll treasure forever.

Have fun trick-or-treating tonight or just stuffing yourself with candy or whatever it is you do in your neck of the woods!

October 30,