Happy Halloween!

We have been celebrating Halloween since September. That's when we got out the decorations.

But we didn't get around to carving pumpkins until last night. Here's how it all went down.

Quinn was interested at first ...



but quickly grew bored with the process and took off to the playhouse.



She also grew tired of paparazzi daddy with the camera and closed up shop for the day.



Griffin tried to clean his pumpkin. His had really thick sides. And when you scoop one seed at a time, it is a bit of a process.



Then G decorated with little pegs (rather than cutting). He LOVED it. I'd poke the peg through the pumpkin, then he'd hammer it in. And every time, he'd say "tap tap tap" as he hammered.



This was the first year that Noah really cleaned his own pumpkin - with minimal complaining, too!



His facial expressions gave him away, dontcha think?






This was also Noah's first year of carving all by himself. First he drew his design.



Then he used a small pumpkin carving knife to cut it out.





He was so meticulous about the process - like my Bean usually is.

Last up: Bob and G carved what was supposed to be Quinn's pumpkin.



And here is the final product: 3 Lessinger jack-o-lanterns, just in time for Halloween.

Working on my studio schtuff ...

And that means I have been dragging my victims ... I mean children ... into the garage for lots of photos during the last 2 days.

Here's one of Miss Quinn and a possible Christmas card type pose.



And the G man (poor kid was happily playing in the backyard, and I bribed his dirty little self to let me test my lights). He's easy to bribe - one pack of smarties and we are set for decent number of photos. :-)



And my big boy. He's a cutie - when I can get him to smile and not give me his impression of Bucky Beaver (totally intentional on his part, by the way).





Here's an example of a technically inferior but still darn cute photo:



And just for fun:

Turner

Last weekend, I took a few photos of Turner. Here are a couple that I liked. He absolutely refused to crack a smile for me - but when Uncle Bob came out and played peekaboo behind me, we had outright laughs! I'm not sure what kind of magical power Bob has over this little guy, but it is pretty cool.





And here's a shot of my big boy. 7 years old. Where does the time go?