Carving!

I have caught something icky. Its like the flu but I feel okay.  Its like a cold but not the typical symptoms?

Oh well, enough about me.

Nathan decided to take Saturday on and clean the entire upstairs. He had the kids help re-organize their rooms.

They sorted who's clothes belonged to who and helped re-fold everything that was all over the floor.

I don't even want to know what that means.

He washed all the sheets, pillowcases, towels dirty clothes -- everything.

The kids helped put it away.

I did what I was supposed to do and sat while I worked on our christmas cards..

After they deep cleaned the upstairs... which I haven't seen in a few weeks; he grabbed the pumpkins and went to town with the kids. I sat at the table and took pictures and laughed at all the fun they were having.

Carving pumpkins and candy corn at 10am was their reward for working so hard upstairs.

Let's do this!

The kids each scraped their own pumpkins.

They wanted their pumpkins to match their mason jars that I made them, so I drew Nathan and the kids cut...

Then we tested them in the garage...

They ran them out front, to show them off.

Juliet and I stayed in the family room.

Then the kids separated the gunk and the seeds.

Here is the recipe we used for caramelized seeds this year:

1 1/2 to 2 cups fresh pumpkin seeds (cleaned and patted dry)
2 to 3 tablespoons brown sugar
pinch of kosher salt
olive oil cooking spray

Place pumpkin seeds in a dry non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Toast them in the pan, constantly shifting them around so that they roast evenly and don’t stick to the pan. When they start to pop and peel, take one out and taste it (make sure it’s cool enough first). If it’s crunchy it’s done. Turn the heat down to low and spray the seeds with olive oil cooking spray and then spoon sugar into pan and stir seeds up as sugar melts and sticks to the seeds. Turn heat off and sprinkle with salt. Let cool and serve!