A Georgia Girl in Germany

We were down to the wire preparing for Halloween this past October. By down to the wire, I mean we finally headed out the door en route to the local pumpkin patch shortly after 3 p.m. Halloween afternoon. Yup, a mere four hours before the official start to trick-or-treating. Welcome to my life of late.

Fortunately, we had a beautiful afternoon to wander through the pumpkin patch, and there were plenty of pumpkins still left for the choosing. In fact, the farmer had even cleared the field of all the vines, making it even easier to search out the perfect pumpkins.

Several times while wandering, each of the kids selected what they thought was the perfect pumpkin. Then, as they wandered and searched a bit more, they found others that seemed better than the previous selections.

After about 30 minutes of searching, they all settled on their picks. Fortunately, no one picked super-huge pumpkins that would have required a forklift to get home. I think they all made wise choices -- all three pumpkins were near-perfect shapes and had gorgeous color.

When we made it home, they all got right to work gutting their pumpkins. Amazingly this year, I didn’t have to stick my hands inside a single pumpkin! Wow!! All I had to do was cut the lids and set them to work. I like that they’re getting old enough to take care of business on their own! Plus, it left me free to take more photos.



Even Benjamin managed his (mostly) on his own. Zachary helped remove some of the guts, but he was a trooper and wasn’t hesitant about getting his hands dirty. He was also very adamant about keeping the pumpkin seeds so we could roast them for a snack later.

Once the pumpkins were gutted, the kids sketched their jack-o-lantern faces so I could carve them up.

Less than two hours after returning home with our pumpkins, they were all three appropriately carved, outside and lit jack-o-lanterns waiting to frighten trick-or-treaters. Oh yeah, we also ate supper and had MacKenzie and Benjamin decked out in their costumes by then too. Whew! These are Zachary and Benjamin’s jack-o-lanterns. Nothing too elaborate, but perfect for us!

MacKenzie made hers with droopy eyelids -- I guess he was a tired jack-o-lantern.

MacKenzie began working on her costume over the summer when we were at Disney World. She really wanted the Jack Sparrow hat from Pirates of the Caribbean, and decided she’d use it as part of her costume ensemble. She had a little help from my closet (my pants and shoes), but made a pretty good “Jacqueline Sparrow.”

Benjamin also decided to be a pirate this year. His costume was much easier to put together though (store-bought), although I did have to convince him to wear a long-sleeve shirt and jeans underneath his mega-thin costume. MacKenzie was disappointed that most people commented on Benjamin being a pirate but didn’t say anything about her being Jack/Jacqueline Sparrow. She even commented once that she put a lot of work into her costume and not just anyone could put together what she did, but that Benjamin’s costume was simple and easy. She had a point.

It was rather cold, so Benjamin had me carry his candy-laden pumpkin between houses so he could hide his hands in his sleeves. I don’t think it did much good though. He and MacKenzie were definitely walking fast in an attempt to keep warm.

Zachary opted to stay home and hand out candy again this year (since he didn’t plan ahead and discovered that his warlock robe from previous years was way too small to get another night’s use from it. At least he bundled up while waiting for trick-or-treaters.


My two little pirates finally made it inside and were able to warm up a bit while sorting through their candy. They were even nice to Zachary and shared their candy with him since he distributed our candy to costume-clad visitors. Our start-to-finish Halloween activities (pumpkin patch visit, gutting, carving, supper, trick-or-treating and back home) took just over four hours. How’s that for cramming everything into a single afternoon!?!!

Labels: Benjamin, Halloween, MacKenzie, Zachary