Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Pumpkin Seeds Then Pumpkin Pie

It's been a busy beginning of the week. The kids didn't want to have anything to do with any of my planned activities on Monday and they weren't on board much on Tuesday either. I did talk Harrison and Elizabeth into trying out my homemade finger paints (condensed milk, food coloring, and fall spices).


Showing daddy her work of art-she was so proud!
I used pumpkin pie spice (orange), cinnamon (red), and apple pie spice (green) to give them a fall vibe. It was a sticky mess! Harrison and Elizabeth required baths afterwards. The two daycare boys I had felt the stickiness and didn't want anything to do with it. It took a while to clean up too, but their pictures turned out very neat!

These gorgeous fall days have meant lots of outside time!

Ever since the kids picked their pumpkins while riding the Pumpkin Express, all Max has talked about was carving pumpkins. So I made a deal with him: we'll try out a cookie cutter pumpkin first and carve another pumpkin this weekend. Right now we've got four pumpkins to carve and we're taking a trip to the pumpkin patch this weekend where I'm told we need a funny shaped pumpkin and a really white pumpkin. I think we'll have plenty of pumpkins around to carve!

Per our deal, Tuesday night we cleaned out a pumpkin and made pumpkin seeds-one of my favorite snacks!

So the kids begged me to clean out a pumpkin and carve it yet Harrison touched the guts once and Max took one handful and said "we're done!" Elizabeth wouldn't go near it and kept pointing at the pumpkin saying "yucky. Oh yucky." So, guess who spent half of the night cleaning out the pumpkin and separating the seeds for baking and eating??? I shoulda figured it would go this way.
My photographer Max didn't do too hot of a job this time around-he had me posing for pictures the entire time and this was the only one I was actually in!
Baked pumpkin seeds-yum! It looks like there's still "pumpkin guts" on the seeds, but it's just olive oil. They were very tasty! This is the first year that the kids tried them. Their take on the seeds "they take FOREVER to chew mom!"

Max informed me tonight: "so, first we'll make pumpkins seeds. Then, after Halloween, when we go trick or treating, we can come home and use the inside for the pumpkin pie." He then went on to explain to me how we would make the pumpkin pie from the "smooth sides of the pumpkin." This boy has ideas and is not afraid to try them out-I dig it!

Tomorrow we'll do the cookie cutter pumpkin with the daycare kids!
The pumpkin all ready for our cookie cutter carving.