Hansons' Pumpkin Party

Every year our friends the Hansons have a pumpkin carving party.  Last year I brought Joshua and Clara, and this year I brought all the kids.  There's lots of food, and we started with that.

Aside from their most important addition in the past year, they also added to their household in a much less important way: chickens!  Jason built a chicken coop on his own without instructions (I'm very jealous of his skills), so now they have chickens in their back yard.  It's not the first time Joshua has held a chicken, but he was still very excited about it nonetheless.  Clara wasn't as sure about it but wanted to do what her big brother was doing.

Like last year, Joshua was totally pumped about carving his pumpkin.  The girls were less interested, and plus it takes a little strength with a serrated knife, so it's not really an easy thing to do, so I mostly did theirs for them,

Joshua told me he wanted a scary face, Clara told me she wanted a happy face, and Hannah told me she wanted a frowny face (I had recently been talking with her about what a frown is, so I think that was on her mind).  Those were all pretty easy to do, so after some additional guidance, such as on eye and nose shapes, I was able to make them the pumpkins they wanted.
Getting pictures of the kids with the pumpkins was harder, as they were almost all blurry because of the lighting.  The best one is this one on the left, but the one on the right is notable because Joshua is doing a scary face that, even when blurry, makes me laugh.

Jason Hanson cooked some pumpkin seeds as a snack for anyone who wanted it, and of course Joshua, who is often into snacks other little kids might not like as much, really liked them.  He and Jason sat by the fire for a bit and bonded while munching on some seeds.

We had a fun time, and I think it's pretty likely that next year I would take all the kids again.