The Pumpkin Picture

Laughing at their daddy

I'm lovin' the pumpkin pictures!  I want to make this an annual tradition.  We did it in in 2008 and again in 2009, but when I combed the memory banks this weekend, I realized that we didn't do it last year.  Why not??

And then I remembered.

Blaine carved pumpkins out of the sheer force of will (for the boys' happiness) after a day of butchering 24 chickens.  The day before Halloween.  The next day, as he was laying prostrate on the couch not wanting to move, I gathered my meager reserves and took the boys to their grandparents' house for some trick-or-treating.  Out of sheer force of will.  Hobbling the entire time on my poor pregnant legs.  Then I myself spent the next couple of weeks laying on the couch, practically bedridden.

Things are much better this year.

Blaine did all the carving, following each boy's special request for the shape of the eyes, nose and mouth.  Except Schtinky, who pooped out and had to nap halfway through, and got the cutest little one-toothed baby pumpkin ever.

I didn't carve because I was cutting up apples for sauce while keeping the baby as happy as I could in the backpack until he could take it no longer.  (Sidenote: I canned another 8 quarts of applesauce last night and 9 pints of cantaloupe pickles.)

What I love most about this picture of the boys - aside from the yearly tradition it has become, how much the boys are growing, the fact that Truen and Jamie are of similar size, all their adorable little faces, the autumn-ish feel to it, and my fondness for the pumpkins - are Schtinky's tan lines in the fat rolls on the ankle of his right foot.

See 'em?  Precious.