Had an enjoyable evening carving jack-o-lanterns with the kids (well, I did most of the actual carving).

Little D’s was the more unusual of the two, with a star and a moon around its eyes. I actually did the drawing of that one before carving it, because he’s only 4 and doesn’t quite have the drawing on round objects thing down yet, but he told me what to draw, and I did it in washable marker so that I could keep making changes to it until it was just the way he wanted it, before starting to carve.

Little A’s was a bit more of a traditional jack-o-lantern, but she drew it herself, and I just cut along the lines she drew. Both, I think, turned out very well (I’ll take pictures tomorrow night, when they’re lit up).

Most interesting conversational snippets of the night (of two very different sorts):

Little A, before we started on the pumpkins: “I don’t think I have any blood in my body.”
Me (surprised): “You don’t? Why not?”
Little A: “No, I think I have liquid amethyst instead.”
Me: “Why do you think that?”
Little A(opening her hand to show me she’s holding a little amethyst): “Because every time I touch an amethyst, it feels so nice!”

Little D (while directing me in drawing the design for his jack-o-lantern onto the pumpkin): “And boogers coming out of its nose, please.”

He said it so POLITELY… (No, I did not carve any boogers – I told him he would need to stick some pumpkin guts in there himself if he wanted that. My pumpkin artistry does have limits, as does my willingness to adapt to the aesthetics of small children.)