Changed out the layout in honor of my favorite holiday!

Last weekend we had our annual cousin pumpkin carving night. Every year more and more people come, which makes for a good time, even though we’re all fighting for table space to work on our creations.

This year was the first year that most of the kids could actually help out with the carving, and they were all pretty excited. We had a whole gang of people surrounding the table! Ben was pretty hyped since he’s seen so many jack-o-lanterns on TV lately. He was pretty picky with our design - he didn’t want it to be too scary, but not too boring. He settled for a mischievous little devil.

Because they’re lazy, they’re men (boys?) and they like to play with power tools, the guys used a power saw-thing to cut the tops off their pumpkins (I have a picture somewhere, but forgot to upload, maybe I’ll do it tomorrow). I prefer the old-fashioned way - using the dinky safety knives to start out my pumpkin. Ben was really interested in the process until I took off the top and he saw all the pumpkin innards and seeds. Too gross for mr. clean! I asked him if he wanted to help me clean out the inside of the pumpkin and he said No, then proceeded to hop off the chair and head towards the toys, telling me to call him when the pumpkin was done.

After a couple minutes, the rest of the kids were bored with the carving, so it was just adults after a while. Poor Maui is always left every year doing Jillian’s pumpkin, which means it would be something extremely girly -this year it was Princess Jasmine.

So below you’ll see our creations (click on the thumbs to see a bigger picture - hover over the left or right to get navigation arrows). As always, it was a great time - the food was AWESOME (nothing better than Brazilian chicken pot pie), I got to hang out with my cousins and we managed to get in a game of Apples to Apples, which Marilyn brought. I assume that she brought it because she’s played it before and thought she’d school us, but I had an early lead. We poked fun at Dave for not having any cards at all mid game, but he ended up kicking all our butts at the end!

Halloween costume pictures to come this weekend!

Tags: Memories, Pictures by Yano
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Whenever we used to go to parties where there was a face painter, Ben was always reluctant to get his face painted, even though he was always fascinated with the faces of the other painted children. He just could never sit still to have anything done, and couldn’t stand having someone touch his face.

Last year, we had gone to the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market when we were in town, and there was a woman who was painting faces. I persuaded Ben to try it, and that it would be quick and easy. She did a quick smiley face on his cheek, and he loved it.

So this year, I asked him if he wanted his face painted again at the market. He was totally excited and even stated that he wanted to become a lion. His heart sank when we got there and there was no face painter to be found. I tried to distract him with other things, but he never forgot to mention the face painter.

Later in the day, though, the face painter came, and Ben went right up to her and requested to be a lion. I was a little nervous that he wouldn’t sit still for such a detailed job, but he was a total trooper and sat still the whole time, patiently waiting for his transformation.

He was overjoyed with the results, so much that he kept it on the whole day, complete with a little roar for anyone who asked, and he didn’t want to wash it off that night.

Now, he wants his face painted all the time. I’ll probably buy a kit off the internets since the Halloween stuff that’s out there is a little scary because most of them aren’t supposed to be used for kids his age. I’ll definitely post up our creations…heck, maybe it might even turn into a side job if I end up being good at this kind of thing!

Tags: Photography, Ben, Stories by Yano
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