it's getting spooky here

Here's what you need for a successful pumpkin carving:

- Mosquito repellent (it's still 85 degrees here, people, we are in prime mosquito time)

- Beer

- A knife

- A "face" outlined in Sharpie on said pumpkin

Here's what you do not need for a successful pumpkin carving:

- A toddler wielding a rusty butter knife that she found lying on the ground in the backyard (although such a scenario makes for a great photo opportunity).

You might find this surprising (or else you won't if you have children) but kids tend to lose interest in projects--even carving Jack-o-Lanterns!--in very short periods of time. Thus, our afternoon family pumpkin carving extravaganza turned into Alex gutting (Catcher didn't like the "feel" of the pumpkin guts) and carving our 2014 family pumpkin himself while I set the stage for the perfect pumpkin Pinterest carving experience...no one bought into that one. The blanket laid out on the stone "patio" (for lack of a better word) with the wooden fence in the background was all part of my plan to show how totally cool and artsy and Pinterest-worthy our pumpkin carving family is, but it turns out that we aren't that cool and artsy. Instead of sifting through pumpkin guts, Catcher turned himself into a human target and begged the knife-wielding toddler to throw tennis balls at him. Meanwhile the artsiest (thus far, at least) of our children, Scout, didn't even participate in the spectacle. She was too busy inside making sculptures out of cardboard boxes she had fished out of the recycling bin. That, my friends, is childhood.