On Sunday my dad and his wife, Helen, invited all five grandkids over for a day of pumpkin carving and cookie decorating. I signed on as adult helper.
Once all the grandkids arrived, it was immediate chaos. We were finally able to wrangle everyone to the basement where we proceeded to help them cut open and gut half a dozen pumpkins. Two of the five—3½-year-old Greta and 6-year-old Ian—were a little put off by the notion of digging their hands in the slimy gunk, especially after they heard Helen was making frosting upstairs. We convinced Ian to stick around but Greta quickly disappeared in search of sugar.
Abigail, 10, and Claire, 8, proved extremely adept in cleaning out their pumpkins and, luckily, were able to lend a hand to the younger kids. Everyone showed off their creativity by drawing a unique face on their pumpkin with a magic marker (although I succumbed to using a pattern). Grandpa and I used a knife to cut out the final faces. We designated several big buckets for guts and saved the seeds in another bucket to roast later.
Because I was downstairs cleaning pumpkin guts from every crack and crevice of the basement, I wasn’t able to see the cookie decorating in progress. That might have been a blessing, as I honestly don’t think I could have handled the sight of all the frosting and sprinkles covering the table, chairs, floor and kids. The resulting cookie were quite stunning, albeit a little on the sweet side for my taste.
Here’s Morgan, 5½, showing off her masterpiece.