The Little Pumpkin That Missed Halloween

A cold rainy day....and for once..NO FOOTBALL PRACTICE!!!!

What to do....What to do....."Mom! Can we carve pumpkins tonight?".....That's the question laid out on the table by Caleb.......Well what's a mom to do....

Off to the kitchen we went in search of the pumpkin carving tools......no where in site. Darn it! I must have packed them away in the halloween totes. I was NOT wanting to drag out the halloween decor this year.......but in the end I'm glad I did.

The kids had a blast with all the old masks and wigs! As you can see..Carter transformed into a blonde hair'd little girl. That child loves trying on wigs! And it's always so funny!

So finally...we found the carving tools at the bottom of the tote...of course..........

Got the pumpkins cut for scooping...*HERE ARE MY PUMPKIN CARVING TIPS DON'T CUT THE TOP OF YOUR PUMPKIN TO SCOOP IT. CUT YOUR HOLE IN THE BOTTOM AND SCOOP IT OUT THAT WAY. THEN ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS LIGHT A TEA LIGHT AND SET THE PUMPKIN OVER THE CANDLE. NO MORE BURNING YOUR FINGERS TRYING TO GET THE CANDLE IN AND ALSO YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE TOP OF THE PUMPKIN GETTING SOFT AND CAVING IN. IF YOUR PUMPKIN IS STARTING TO LOOK WILTED DURING THE DAY SET IT IN A BUCKET OF WATER. IT WILL REVIVE IT EVERY TIME!-THERE'S YOUR HANDY TIPS OF THE YEAR LOL*

There is something about a pumpkin when you first cut it open..it just smells soooo good!! As soon as I cut Caleb's pumpkin open I had to stick my head close to it and take a good wiff of that fresh pumpkin smell..little did I know someone else was taking that all in. (See photo of Carter above with head almost in the pumpkin lol)

Caleb jumped right in ripping the pumpkin guts out but Carter, it took him a little bit. He didn't like the feel of it. The whole time Caleb is telling him to just dig in lol...(photos above)

Caleb used a carving pattern for his pumpkin, Carter created his own silly face and Dan used a pattern. This was Dan's first time using a carving pattern. He was so proud of the final results. (photos above) Caleb's is a skeleton like face, Dan's is a devil thing.

Of course after all the pumpkins were carved I had to take pictures. And that's when it happened. The little pumpkin that missed halloween!!!

Carter was SOOOO tired he dropped his pumpkin on the floor on accident! (you can see how sleepy he is in the photo) It cracked right in two hanging on by a little flesh!

I felt so bad for him! He was truely bummed!! I'm going to try to tack it together by inserting tooth picks into but we'll see. We told him we'd get him a new pumpkin today. Poor little guy!

So we get past the hump of the broken pumpkin and I tell Caleb to set the bowl of pumpkin guts out in the breezeway and I'd throw them over the fence row tomorrow. "MOM!! Aren't you going to make roasted pumpkin seeds???"...........OYE-I WASN'T PLANNING ON IT!.

So there I sit, picking pumpkin seeds out of the big bowl of pumpkin guts watching the debate.

I threw them in a container of salt water and let them set over night........so today...on my agenda is "make pumpkin seeds"........what a mummy won't do for her little goblins I tell ya.........

So there is our adventures in pumpkin carving. Hope you enjoyed sharing a family moment with us. Thanks for reading!!

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

OUR ENCOUNTER WITH COYOTES

What a scary and emotional night we had.

Everyone was in bed, it was about nine o'clock and I was up checking my email.

I kept hearing our outside dog (Goldie-the one that had puppies) barking. That is NOT unsual for her to bark and bark. She constantly is barking at the pigs when they make noise.

But tonite it was a different bark!!! She wasn't only barking she was yelping and circling the house and growling at the door.

I jumped up and RAN into the bed room screaming at Dan to GET UP! SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!!!

He quickly got dressed, grabbed his gun and as soon as we opened the door Goldie RAN in. She is an OUTSIDE dog and NEVER comes in the house. Never even tries! We knew then something was wrong!!

Dan stepped out on our cement patio and there right on the cement patio was a COYOTE!!!

As soon as it seen Dan it ran and Goldie chased after it.

Because Coyotes often travel in packs we weren't sure how many there were...so here Dan and I stand in the yard back to back...he's holding his hand gun straight out and I'm holding the flashlight straight out and we are turning in circles to see what we are dealing with. (pictures Charlie's Angels here lol)

Luckily we didn't see anymore...but we knew we had to go to the front of the yard where the puppies are right next to the cornfield (where the coyotes linger)

So we jumped in the truck, drove over to where Goldie moved her puppies and put the headlights on high beam. We quickly loaded the puppies in the truck as fast as we could...Dan loaded them and I kept watch. (Scary!!!)

1 puppy...2 puppy..3..4...5...6...........6.......there should be 10! They got them! 4 were missing!!!

We couldn't find them anywhere. Once we got them in the truck it was as if Goldie knew they were safe. She took off running in the cornfield for a couple minutes and then she came FLYING out of the cornfield.....ahhh releif! She found one of the pups!! She brought it to us and laid it at our feet.....Dan picked it up but it was dead!!!!

He laid it in the back of the truck and Goldie went out to the field in search of the rest of her babies....she could not find anymore of them.

But she was circling Dan's truck. She knew something was not ok with her baby!

When we got back up to the house Dan got the puppy out and laid it on the ground. Goldie sniffed it and licked it and rubbed her face on it and then looked up at Dan and whimpered.

Dan and I both were heartbroken!! I of course was bawling! I felt so bad for her!

Now we have the rest of the pups and Goldie in the garage.

Those damn coyotes. It makes me so mad!!!

I've included some photos of the puppies they've really grown and are such cute little things!!!