Gourd Artists

At Peter's last two schools Halloween was a big deal. The kids got to wear costumes to school, they had parties, they got treats; it was quite the affair. At their current school, Halloween may as well not exist. Cooper did go to a pumpkin patch, but it was all in the name of Fall, not any specific holiday. I feel kind of bad that they don't get much of a celebration, so I'm trying to up my game and do more here at home.

Yesterday after playing at the park (it was early-out and, according to the weather reports, one of our last sunny days) we came home and covered our table with trash bags. A few days ago I picked up a bag of mini-pumpkins. The kids like to carve pumpkins, I do too actually, but I wasn't willing to tackle the mess and sharp knives to get three pumpkins carved. My compromise was that we could decorate these little gourds.

I pulled out some paint we were given and have never used, told the kids to go get on big pajama shirts over their clothes, and laid out our supplies. Rather than use paint brushes, we used Q-tips. The kids were thrilled that I let them paint. We do a lot of coloring with crayons and markers and pencils, but we rarely delve into paint.

I donned my apron and joined them. After we painted our pumpkins, we also each painted a Halloween picture on construction paper. Well, Phoebe's was actually more of an abstract flower. Then we got cleaned up and gathered all our Halloween themed books (we found fifteen) to read while the paint dried. The paint was pretty low-quality and cracked and flaked, but it served our purpose.

Now to see if I can carry out the Halloween fun I have planned for today...