Yesterday started off like any other day. I got up a few minutes before the boys were due home from school and started thinking of what the day and the week held for me.
To self: Today is...what is today? Ah, Tuesday. Does Britt have scouts tonight? {check the cellphone calendar} Nope. Okay, so tonight is free. Tomorrow night, church. Thursday night, technically free but one of these free nights needs to be used to get decorations ready for the Trunk or Treat at church on Friday night. So tonight or Thursday night we need to go on the search for the Great Pumpkins and carve them. Thursday night is the night before Halloween and who wants to carve a pumpkin for just one day? It would be like putting the Christmas tree up on Christmas Eve. Wonder when the Charlie Brown special comes on. {Check listings} Tonight. Well, we watch that or carve, but not both because I am not carving their pumpkins while they watch TV. {Set DVR to record it} Tonight is the night for the annual pumpkin carving! {The boys burst through the door}
This is how I spend my five minutes of free time before the boys get in from school. Sad isn't it?
I tell the boys that we need to get their homework done because we have something fun to do today. They are excited and do homework without whining or even asking for a snack. Amazing what they will do when they think something is in it for them. They finish their homework in record time and I tell them the game plan.
Britt is great with it until I tell him that we are going to Walmart. I know, I know. Walmart is not a very festive place to gather the treasured orange gourd but I needed some other things from there. Remember that we do not have a Target or any other option for some things. Sad but true. Britt hates Walmart. Well, to be more accurate, Britt hates shopping unless it is for one thing that is for him.
Charlie is all about going to Walmart because he knows that he has birthday money to spend and is sure that we will be stopping by the toy section! He was a little disappointed when I told him that he was not going to get another toy until he managed to find a place for pile of toys that he got at his party in his room.
They are still stacked in the living room. A little tradition that was born because frankly we have a very small house and birthdays and Christmas toys require some purging in the boys' closets and bins. This takes time so the toys seem to stay in the living room for a few days until we make space for them. The boys look at it as a special treat to have their toys out and ready whenever they get ready to play with them. But, I digress.
Off to Walmart. While we are there, I decided to look for some school jeans for Charlie. We realized when we got their winter clothes out that he only has two pair of jeans. A couple of pair of jeans should do until I can find the time to look again or order them on-line. Plus, he is with me today which is a bonus for finding the right size.
We are in the boys' clothes and he is very cooperative while I am finding his size. While I am searching for the right size in the style I want I hear this huge gasp. Charlie said, "Mama, look." I didn't think much about it because Charlie is the closest I will ever come to having a girl. (A bit dramatic)
I absent-mindedly said, "What is it?" To which he replies, "It's beautiful!" Told ya. A bit may have been an understatement.
I look up to see this: on the shelf of course.

(sorry about the picture quality, still learning this camera)
In case you don't have boys or you have boys that are not into this...this is a Transformers belt that is a blend of the two emblems of the Transformers, Autobots on the left and Decepticons on the right. See what you learn when you're the mom of boys! Basically, this will be the envy of all the little K5 boys at NPE tomorrow because Charlie HAD to have it.
So, after adding a couple of pairs of new jeans and the coolest belt EV-AH to our stash, we headed off to the pumpkins. The boys were surprisingly not very picky about their pumpkins this year. I recall one year that we had to look and look for just the right one. I have a feeling it was because Britt was tired of Walmart before we even made it to the clothes, and Charlie had the belt which far out shadowed a silly ole pumpkin any day.
That was fine with me. They picked one out and I inspected it for bad spots and carveability. Both passed with their first picks. I put Charlie's in the buggy but Britt was determined that he wanted to carry his to the check out. Who am I to deny this boy his wishes. Besides if he dropped it in the store we could still get another one without having to brave the Walmart checkouts twice.
He carried it to the front of the store but had to set it down before we got to the checkout belt. He has a lot to learn about Walmart. The first rule of Walmart: There is no such thing as a quick trip to Walmart.
Even if you walk in, walk straight to your item, and walk straight to the checkout. The checkout is designed to stall you so that you will buy beef jerky, gossip magazines, candy, Cokes and perhaps something that was As Seen on TV.
We finally make it through and we only succumb to beef jerky and three drinks. A relatively sucessful checkout if you ask me.
Home to do some carving!
I get everything ready while the boys are drawing a sketch of what the want their Jack-O-Lantern faces to look like. They were pretty true to the boys' personalities. Charlie wanted round eyes, dimples and freckles just like him. Britt's went with the classic look of triangles.
Pat helped us cut them, because me with a knife trying to cut anything that is not on a hard flat surface is not really safe. Add an excited boy right beside me and it is a recipe for a trip to the ER.
Then came the grossest part. Emptying the guts as Britt called it. He loved it and was not grossed out at all.
Charlie on the other hand, was not going to stick his hand in there. Until Pat figured out that he really thought it was guts inside. Then he was better but still not really liking it, as you can tell from his face.
Britt wanted to do all of his own carving so I outlined his design for him and let him go. With one of those non-sharp carving thingys not a knife. My controling OCD nature cannot watch them do something like this and not want to pull it from their hands and do it myself. Knowing this about myself, I asked Pat to supervise his first self carved pumpkin.
Charlie wanted me to carve his. He did, however, stand over me and comment on every move I made. He has a bit of the OCD controlling nature himself. He just hasn't developed the confidence to want to take it from me yet. He liked his pumpkin in the end though.
Here is what you will find on our front porch should you come calling.
Wanna see other's pumpkins? Check out this site: