Neighborhood Pumpkin Carving Party - AKA The Pumpkin that Just Kept Growing

Let me start on a tangent before I dive into the awesome fun that our neighborhood pumpkin carving party (year 2) was. Around the month of March, Nate got a wild hair (or really cemented that wild hair) that he wanted a garden. He'd been talking about it since probably summer of last year, but really got interested after seeing our neighbor's (the Lawrence's) garden and all the wonderful produce it...produces. (Hee - couldn't pass that pun up.) Once I realized that Nate was seriously considering this endeavor I made it abundantly clear I wanted nothing to do with it. This was to be his project from start to finish. I didn't want him to start it, then get super busy with work, business trips, PE committee work, papers, etc and start to rely on me to make the garden happen. I think I became a little, um, enthusiastic in my "not gonna do it" speech as eventually Nate had to take me by the shoulders and inform me that he got it. :-) And so the garden began. After picking an unobtrusive spot in our backyard (along the back fence between two rock beds) Nate built a frame and then got to work on filling it with dirt.

I couldn't pass up the cute tushies! 

Abby LOVES working on projects with Nate. I'm so thankful Nate is the type of Dad that has the patience to request Abby's help when it's appropriate to do so. He's usually the one saying "Abby, want to help me with X" while I'm in the background wondering how he manages to keep his patience, get projects done, and still have her help all the while wondering if she's too little for what she's doing. Since she typically completes her tasks without issue I know it's MY issues that need work. :-)

Dumping dirt out of the truck and into the garden. (I'm also thankful that I'm the type of Mom that doesn't care how dirty she gets, knowing that a bath is always available. She had So. Much. Fun. digging through all the dirt.)

When we put in the new fence after the old wooden one blew down in a wind storm Nate made sure we could easily remove a panel section to allow for getting into the backyard through the side of the fence and not be limited by the width of the gate. It was really helpful to be able to drive the truck through the open section and right up to the garden, but it was a tight fit!

Even tighter on this side!

Not much room to spare, but he did it!

A peek into our yard with the panel removed.

Our garden. sniff. I'm so proud.

Abby getting a quick 30 second ride in the front seat as Nate drives out of the backyard and onto the street. She was a little put out when I made her get in the carseat in the back to drive the truck back to Bo's house (thanks again for letting us borrow the truck!) as she'd decided she was big enough to ride in the front now. 

A few months passed and suddenly it was May. Nate realized he was set to leave for Madrid, Spain for a roughly two week business trip and we still hadn't planted anything in our garden. Whoops! So on the night before he left, with the wind whipping at our hair, Nate and Abby went to the store to pick up some seeds then brought them home and planted them. Planting was kind of a hoot. We generally knew how far apart and how deep we needed to plan the various seeds (thanks Alisha!) but had no row dividers, identification signs, or anything that might help determine where things should go. So Nate would guesstimate on where something should be planted and start creating thumbprint holes. Abby would try to plant only one seed in each hole, but...well, sometimes seeds would scatter here or there, other times a whole bunch would get into the hole, you get the picture. It was controlled garden planting chaos. One of the things that got planted was two pumpkin seeds. Two itty, bitty pumpkin seeds. (We also planted tomatoes, beets, carrots, bib lettuce, watermelon, peppers, cucumbers, and petunias. The watermelon, lettuce and cucumbers never made it. The peppers started to grow fruit then died. The petunias were solely because of my suggestion and were a waste of space.)

As time passed and little sprouts appeared I found myself excitedly looking forward to what our garden was doing. I even found myself, gasp, watering the garden on the super hot days in May when it seemed like our sprinklers weren't enough. So much for my "not gonna do nothin'" stance. :-) As those tiny sprouts starting turning into actual plants it was even more exciting as we'd check out how many tomatoes were producing, contemplate if we went deep enough for the carrots to really grow, and laugh about how we had no idea what some of the plants were as we couldn't remember what was planted where. But one thing we were thankful for, was that our pumpkin seeds appeared to be actually producing vines and flowers. There wasn't much to them at this point in time, but there was enough to be hopeful that we'd get a pumpkin or two come Halloween time.

Here you can see the pumpkin leaves in the front-right corner of the garden. This picture was taken in August so there's been significant growth of the garden and actual vegetables have been produced and consumed! Nate started wrapping the pumpkin vines around and between the green and red bushes beside the garden to give the pumpkin vine room to grow that wasn't in the yard. I have to comment on Alex and Abby's dinner. We had friends over and were in the process of putting the two kids outside with the Dads (Moms and Alex's sister were planning on staying inside where it was cooler) when we looked out and saw that the kids had swiped the Cheetos bag, dumped the entire bag's contents out on the table, and were happily munching away. We all laughed and agreed that summer had special rules. :-) Very happy we're not uptight parents!!! 

The months passed and we noticed that one pumpkin seemed to be surpassing all the others in size. So much so that at one point we had three pumpkins (which I thought was sweet for the three of us family members) and then one day there were two pumpkins and an odd looking shrunken one. A few days after that and only two pumpkins. The big pumpkin was sucking the nutrients from all other potential pumpkins! Then we went out one day and the second pumpkin had turned mushy and was no longer worth keeping on the vine. At this point Nate and I were both expressing hope that our large pumpkin would make it to Halloween as it would be a cool sight indeed.

Fast forward to a few weeks before Halloween and it was officially time to harvest the pumpkin for our Neighborhood Pumpkin Carving Party (you thought I'd never finish my tangent, didn't you?). Nate cut the pumpkin and then worked at getting it into the wheelbarrow as he wasn't able to carry the pumpkin on its own. How big was this pumpkin? You're probably thinking we're over estimating its greatness. Well, coming in at a wheel-barrow girth and a whopping 154 pounds here's our "from a tiny seed, watering from the sprinklers, fertilizer on the random times Nate was home and thought about it, please make it to Halloween pumpkin"!

I'm still amazed this actually grew in our garden. It lived between the green and red prickly bushes, required us to take out the bird feeding pole for fear the pole would split the stem and deprive the pumpkin of its nutrients. Our yard looks so much less overgrown now that a huge chunk of pumpkin vine is no longer growing over everything.

We also grabbed the pumpkin that we thought would have a sad death about a month prior (Nate, not noticing that a pumpkin was growing in the vines that had been inhabiting our grass space for too long, accidentally cut it off the vine. I'd put it on the patio with the intent of throwing it away (as there was a gash in the side of the pumpkin that I thought for sure would rot) and then promptly forgot about it. Amazingly enough it kept getting more orange in color and didn't rot, so that became a small pumpkin for Abby to carve.

Abby carving her "cut early from the vine and forgot to throw away" pumpkin with a vengeance! Nate was super helpful with being her guiding hands. I was chilling in a lawn chair scarfing down McDonald's oatmeal and pancakes (LOVE the breakfast all day option!) as Abby and I had come from a birthday party for one of her classmates but had had to leave right before they served dinner to make this neighborhood party. I was starving!

This year our party included roughly 15 adults and 10 kids. Music was playing, snacks were chilling, adults were chatting, and kids were carving pumpkins or running around playing. I love my neighborhood and my neighbors!

Beginning their masterpieces. 

Getting and giving input on the best designs to carve.

Getting to pumpkin perfection.

Introducing paint to the carving procedure. That's also our pumpkin in the background behind the stroller. 

Finally, the time came when all the kids' pumpkins were carved and the adults (Nate and Damien especially) could focus on Big Bertha. The first knife didn't make a dent in the skin and the second knife wasn't long enough to reach all the way through to the inside of the pumpkin. Knife number three did the trick - sharp and long enough.

Nate sticking his head in the top of the pumpkin just so see if he could fit. Yes, yes, he could.

Damien and Nate working on the pumpkin's face. We decided to do a traditional face and make as few as cuts possible as each cut was exceedingly difficult. 

Our finished result! Gigantic Jack o' Lantern!

We were all so proud of how big the pumpkin was and how nice the carving turned out. Then we got a little silly with it as someone wondered out loud if it was big enough to fit a small child. Well, let's find out!

Awesomely, Abby fit inside the pumpkin! All the neighborhood kids (even the older 11 year-olds!) took a turn either inside, heads upside down inside while remaining outside, or other various funny poses. 

We also got this sweet family photo, too. 

Our giant pumpkin on our porch next to two very normal sized pumpkins.

I know this post has been a lot about "The Pumpkin" but the pumpkin would not have been as much fun as it was without our neighbors celebrating its carving with us. We left a very fun birthday party early to attend this gathering and even more crazy....I gave up a much desired scrapbooking night to be here with friends and family. THAT'S how awesome this party was. Thanks again to my neighbors for a wonderful get-together! Already looking forward to next year's festivities. :-)