Hallows' Eve... Eve? - Family Pumpkin Carving

It's that time of year again. Time for all the cute, scary, pretty and, I guess you could include, "sexy" costumes to come out. Decorating your house with ghosts, creepy creatures, pumpkins and all things halloween-y. We actually decorated our house tonight with all that fun stuff. A bit late, but you know how the saying goes, "better late than never".

As you can see, we welcomed creepy creatures, black cats and creepy crawly things - clearly fake. The girls had so much fun helping me put decorations up. As for Declan, he had fun being a terror and taking things down. So we took a break from putting more decorations up.

We also carved pumpkins this evening. Earlier this morning we told the kids that as soon as daddy gets home and after we've eaten our dinner, we could carve pumpkins. So the whole day, Mckenzie would ask, "Is daddy home yet? We carve pumpkins yet?". It was cute and annoying all at the same time. When Sadie got home, the girls picked out what kind of pumpkin they wanted. Can you guess what they chose?? If you said, Elsa and Anna, you are right! We decided to carve Declan's pumpkin as the Lorax, since it is one of his favorite movies at the moment - also, he could care less what his pumpkin was going to be... I don't even think he realizes that he even has one.

As soon as Mike got home from work and showered quickly, we started on dinner. And after 45 minutes of Mike and I constantly asking the girls to "eat their dinner" and "to stop goofing off", we finally started on our pumpkin carving.

As you can see, Sadie was not at all excited to be cleaning out the pumpkin. She was so grossed out. I tried telling her that she cleaned her pumpkin out last year. But she wouldn't budge. And when big sissy is grossed out, Mckenzie is grossed out, too. She did put her hand in there, but pulled it right out as soon as her hands got slimy and wet. Thank goodness for daddy. He got right in there while mommy snapped some shots.

This kid - he is usually in bed by 530-6ish. So, when we started, it was already way passed his bed time. I loaded him up with stickers and markers. Two things he doesn't see too often, so he was a happy camper, in his chair the whole time! It made me one happy mama - that's for sure!

After the pumpkins got cleaned out, Mike started on the carving. And while he was doing the carving, the girls decorated their other pumpkin with pumpkin decorating stickers I bought from Target. They loved it and had so much fun decorating their pumpkins on their own.

 I seriously love this little guy. And I was so surprised with how happy he was.

Once Mike was done doing all the "heavy lifting" aka pumpkin carving, I managed to get a family photo afterwards. Even with Declan being up 4 hours passed his bedtime, he didn't mind taking pictures at all. I honestly don't even remember when the last time we took a family picture. When people offer to take a family picture, I normally opt out of one because, either Declan is asleep, or there is one kid or sometimes two or even all three kids upset or Mike is not in a picture taking mood (he is not a big fan of posing for pictures. He is more of a candid picture kind of guy). So I was shocked and so incredibly happy that the one we took turned out great!

And I honestly love this picture in particular because of Mckenzie's face. Always the joker.

Lastly, the girls wanted pictures with their pumpkins before going to bed. The faces I got - priceless!

As Sadie would say, "One more sleep until Hallowe'en". I hope everyone has a fun and safe Hallowe'en!

Everyone, meet our family clown, Mckenzie Angela Donahue. We are guaranteed a good laugh by either watching her or listening to her. There are times (I'd say, most of the time) where she isn't even trying to be funny, yet Mike and I are always laughing over what she has said or done. Don't get me wrong, we have two other littles who make us smile and laugh until our stomachs hurt and breathing has become scarce . But this girl is definitely our family clown. She is constantly winning us over by her cute little gestures, snotty - yet adorable remarks, copy cat ways, and just not taking anything too serious.

Take this little Cowgirl photoshoot as an example. She asked for her pictures to be taken with Jesse, cowgirl boots and all. I wasn't expecting much. She suggested to take the pictures outside. It was pretty chilly, so I figured I'd take a few pictures of her smiling with Jesse and some poses. Instead, I got this -

 I took a lot of snapshots of her. Most of the pictures were either too blurry because she was constantly  moving or she had her eyes closed and was facing in a different direction. She made it pretty difficult to take pictures of her. Then again, it was HER photoshoot. She did ask for it, she could do whatever she wanted to do. But really - all the blurry pics, the funny faces, the 'I can barely see you' pictures - I love them all. Because these pictures are what shows her personality and who she really is. A carefree little girl with a big heart, who just loves to have fun.