Ellie's First Jack-O-Lantern

I have a Hurricane Sandy recap in the works, but in the meantime, let's go back to some Halloween preparations. I realize this is hardly timely, as Halloween was over a week ago and there has been a whole Presidential election since then, but hey. Sandy put us behind the times. Cut me some slack!

The Sunday before Sandy hit, we did a little bit of shopping for hurricane supplies:

Water, pumpkin beer, wine, candles, pumpkin and carving kit, and brownies. Necessities!

Frankly, I wish we had taken things more seriously and stocked up on more non-perishable food, but we really didn't think we'd be without power for as long as we were. But that's a story for another post.

Among our stash was a pumpkin and a pumpkin-carving kit. We figured that would be a good way to pass the time during the storm. On Monday, Sandy rolled in and we were thankful for this Halloween activity to help us pass the evening hours as things intensified outside.

Ellie and Eric, ready to carve

We started with the emptying of the seeds, of course. I was interested to see what Ellie would think about it, as she is known for grabbing anything and everything and stuffing it right in her mouth. To my surprise, however, she was NOT excited about pumpkin guts. She might have actually been full-on offended.

Here we go!

Eric cutting the top off the pumpkin, and Ellie's first look.

Wait, what is this stuff?!

Nope. Don't like it.

Poor, tormented baby

We tried releasing her from her high chair constraints so she could really get in there for herself, which brought her from offended to mildly interested.

Scoping things out from the safety of her mama's arms

In her defense, she was a little tired....

Yaaaaaawn

...and the newspaper on the table was much more interesting, anyway.

Much more her speed.

Her Daddy's Halloween candy also piqued her interest a bit.

Get in my mouth, Kit Kat!

But I think she did ultimately have a pretty good time!

Smiley little pumpkin!

Because of the yawn pictured above, Ellie ended up in bed before we finished the pumpkin. Eric and I were happy to finish it up on her behalf while she slept peacefully (until we lost power later that evening, causing our smoke detector to go into panic mode, thus waking the baby, but again - another story for another post).

Once the inside of the pumpkin was cleaned out, I went to work outlining our design on the face of the pumpkin.

Poking holes in our pumpkin

Then Eric did the carving, and he did a fantastic job. When he finished, we admired our Jack-O-Lantern 2012: Pooh Bear, in honor of our Pooh-Bear-loving baby!

Silly old bear!

As I mentioned, we lost power that evening, so we ended up getting a lot of use out of that pumpkin. At least it was a festive way to enjoy our candlelight!

The next morning, we gave Ellie a look at her pumpkin.

Come here, Pooh!

She was mesmerized.

I think she was quite pleased!

Happy Halloween from Ellie and Pooh Bear!