Monday, October 29, 2007

Family Night: Pumpkins!

This week, we decided to carve our pumpkin. I'm not trying to get into a Halloween debate - but this Family Night really has nothing to do with Halloween. Carving a pumpkin is just something I remember being fun as a child and I wanted my girls to have the experience as well.

In typical fashion for me, I themed the whole night around the pumpkin. We started off with homemade pizza. I was inspired by an e-mail I got from Kraft Food & Family to make a pumpkin on the pizza. Their version involved dying the cheese and doing multiple pumpkins with no face. I decided it would be simpler to use cheddar cheese to make the pumpkin color and cut pepperoni to form the face!

I served Emily on our "You Are Special" plate. This is a plate I made years ago that incorporates the verse, "He counts the stars and calls them all by name..." I liked the idea because I hoped it communicated that if God knows each star by name, how much more He knows each of us by name. He knows how special we are and I hope Emily will eventually catch the meaning!


After dinner, we headed out to the porch to begin working on our pumpkin. First, I read the Pumpkin Patch Parable. It's a great book that uses a pumpkin and Scripture to explain to children about God choosing us, cleaning out all the yucky stuff inside and putting His light in us to shine out to all who see it.

Rachel gives the pumpkin a "hug" - cute!

Neither of the girls was exactly thrilled about the feeling of the slimy insides! Mama and Daddy cleaned out most of it!

But, they sure did love the results of seeing a face appear in the pumpkin!

And, both were excited about seeing it glow with a candle!

After oohing and aahing over the pumpkin for a few minutes, we came inside to decorate pumpkin shaped sugar cookies.

You can see that Rachel really enjoyed her cookie!

Emily had fun decorating with icing that she helped make!

Naturally, a cookie tastes much better with sprinkles and M&M's! Yummy!

We finished the evening off by watching It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown - another childhood memory for me.

17 comments:

Wendi said...

How fun! I love It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. I remember watching it as a child. As an adult I still watch it each year.

*carrie* said...

Monica,

You are just amazing with your themed nights! That pizza is a hoot, and so is Rachel's face smeared with frosting. =)

Anonymous said...

I'm always happy to hear about fun memories you have from childhood and see the creative ways you are passing them on to your own sweet little ones. :) Looks like everyone had a great time together! (Love the "pumpkin" pizza!) Love you, Mom

Katy said...

That is great!!! My kids don't like the pumpkin guts either!!! LOL Love the pics! We don't "celebrate" halloween here either...although, i let my kids dress up and do pumpkins....it is just too fun not to! :) Have a great monday!

Jenn said...

What a fun mom you are! I am going thru pics to find since my daughter is turning 16 this year, and I want a scrapbook of her life up thru her birthday (for her gift) and I came away depressed. I wish we had done these fun ideas back then, and had pictures of them. At least my boys will have better scrapbooks and more memories when they grow up.

Grace said...

It looks like fun was had by all! Maybe we will carve the pumpkin you gave us although I would hate to not have it the rest of fall. Maybe I will get another one. Can you share your frosting recipe again or point me in the direction if you already have?

Liisa said...

What a fun evening! I am going to incorporate your ideas into our day. I know the little ones will love it.
Blessings,
Liisa

Amy said...

Very cute! I am making pizza for our family tonight and I am totally stealing your pumpkin pizza idea!

Your evening sounds wonderful and enjoy all of your themed activities and appreciate your help in inspiring me in our family time!

Anonymous said...

This sounds lovely!!

I wanted to tell you that I made your apple pie recipe yesterday - using my own canned apple pie filling (from your recipe also). But what I wanted to really tell you was that making the pie was a last minute decision and we had a huge group coming for dinner! So, at the last minute I threw together your crust - WOW - SO easy!!! I was thrilled! Then I just dumped in the filling and whipped up the topping. Can I just tell you how much everyone loved the pie??!?!?!??! They RAVED about it!

Thank you for all your recipes, Monica! Keep them coming because I had no fear about trying any of your recipes even if it is for company - because I know they are going to be wonderful!

Like the cheese muffins - we served two batches of those last night as well - with the stew I made and WOW! They were DEVOURED! (It wasn't the first time I made those, but it was the first time I made them for company).

Bless your day!

Anonymous said...

I love the Pumpkin Patch Parable. It looks like you all had a great time.
Ruth

Paige said...

Hey, you know Scott requested the Charlie Brown "trifecta"(pumpkin, thanksgiving and christmas specials) as a gift and he got it in his last box. He showed "it's the great pumpkin" on movie night friday.Imagining marines, smoking their cigars and watching Charlie Brown gets me smiling. I also sent him a knick knack of a pumkin with snoopy standing beside it and woodstock on top. Too cute!
We are going to gild our pumpkins today.
Paige

Molly said...

What fun! I love that plate you made! Have you shared the directions for that before? If not, could you please share them? I would love to make one for our family and for a family basket for each of my husband's siblings for Christmas! Thanks for all of the ideas you share!

Anonymous said...

What a fun evening! I LOVE your plate! How did you make it?
Thanks for sharing about your fun activities...you are such a good mommy!
Have a blessed day!
Amy O. from GA
picketfencemom

Anonymous said...

Cute! Looks like everyone had a great time!
God bless :)

Anonymous said...

LOVE the pizza, that is such a great idea! Also love the plate, an even more wonderful idea.

Ann @TheAssetEdge said...

I LOVE your pumpkin pizza! My family loves to make pizza, so I can't wait to try making a pumpkin pizza!

jenny said...
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