What bugs me most about my husband also happens to be the exact thing I love most about him: he’s just a big kid.
It’s a complicated thing…but it’s what leads me to come home and find a giant slide installed in the basement or the bottom half of the kitchen counter tops turned into 6 feet of magnet boards or the kids riding down the steps on a mattress or…well…you get the picture.
But sometimes, sometimes he has ideas that are brilliant (although I’ll never admit it) and two nights ago he had one of those ideas.
Here’s what happened:
The other night after we put the kids to bed he comes in the house carrying a pumpkin. Then he proceeds to cut a hole out of the bottom and hollow the thing out.
After that he whips out this sack of goodies…pumpkin lollipops, Halloween pencils, spooky drinking cups, etc. and starts filling up the inside of the pumpkin.
When he was finished he put the bottom back on the pumpkin and strategically places toothpicks through it’s flesh to hold the bottom in place. Then he carried the pumpkin back out onto the porch.
Fast forward to last night:
Last night we started carving our pumpkins.
My husband carried in the first pumpkin and asked the kids to help him carry in the rest. Then we set about to cutting off the tops and pulling out the seeds. Each of our kids were happily dejunking their pumpkins when my husband ask them to help him pull off the top of a particularly stubborn pumpkin.
So they all gathered around and Simon pulled.
When the top popped off instead of finding guts they found a pumpkin full of treats.
It was a Halloween miracle!
(Which is kind of like a Festivus Miracle but without the airing of grievances.)
Anyways, each of the kids reacted differently.
Simon was totally confused. He kept saying “It’s not possible!!!”
Grace was amazed. She thought it was magic.
And Ruth, she was just excited to find some chocolate covered cinnamon bears.
It was a great idea.
And loads of fun.
I’d highly recommend this activity…and now that we’ve done it I’m thinking the possibilities of what you could fill the inside of your pumpkin with are endless. (And depending on who is going to be carving the pumpkin you could fill it with things that are gross…or scary…or funny…yea, the possibilities here are endless….)
When we were finished we put the kids to bed and tried another one of my husbands ideas:
roasting the pumpkin seeds.
Neither of us had done this before so we googled some recipes and got to work.
We tried quite a few.
(We had A LOT of pumpkin seeds)
But our favorite recipes were these three:
Sugar and Spice Roasted Pumpkin Seeds HERE
Salty Sweet Roasted Pumpkin Seeds HERE
Sweet and Sticky Sriracha Roasted Pumpkin Seeds HERE
Out of those three I can’t decide which flavor I like the best. They are all really different, really good and REALLY easy to make.
So that is that. It’s not the post I had planned on today. I had a “5 Halloween decorations to make in less than 5 minutes” post ready to go. But I think this one is a lot more fun. (And I know my kids will remember it a lot longer than those pumpkins I painted white and have sitting in the entry way….)
Have a great day before Halloween everyone and good luck on all your last minute decorating and costume making adventures!
-liZ
PS—Sorry about the lousy pictures…it was night, indoors, under the kitchen light. Plus, I was more interested in watching the kids reaction than I was in getting great photos. I swear, whatever I post on Friday will look better than this :)
Love this idea!!
No apoligies needed! This was a wonderful post –pictures included!
GREAT Idea!
Love this!
This is so sweet! It reminds me of the time my grandpa carefully cracked walnuts in half and glued them back together with dollar bills folded inside so we could find them. Magic indeed!
Their faces!!!! Great idea!
This is such a cute little idea!
Brilliance seems to be a common thread in your family!
That is awesome. Their faces are priceless.
~Michelle
WOW! Love this & that idea! {Also the Walnut idea in comment above!} How clever & you Littles are SO Lucky to have you BOTH as parents!! TFS!! kweenbee_612@yahoo.com
A couple of years ago, my husband mentioned that his mom always roasted the pumpkin seeds after carving pumpkins. After he went on for a little while about how much he loved them, I took the (not subtle) hint and offered to roast them. The problem was, I had no idea what to do, and he said he thought his mom just threw them in the oven with some salt. So I tried it. And it did NOT work. So I’ve never attempted them again. Maybe next year I’ll try a real recipe.
That’s so magical! I love it. 🙂
Husbands who remain kids are truly the best!