Gigglin' Gus survives his first tornado

Our plans for going to a softball game got derailed by the rain (a.k.a. tornadoes) last Wednesday night, so I ran out quickly to grab some fun stuff for a pumpkin carving, pizza eating, cookie makin' night at home.

In all the years I taught school I'm embarrassed to admit, I had NO idea there were such things as pumpkin carving kits. Every year, I would ignore the zero tolerance laws at school and sneak in the biggest carving knife I owned wrapped in a towel and concealed in my school bag, then I'd lock it in the cabinet in my classroom until the party began. No pumpkin I ever planned turned out the way I had pictured it in my head. I was always amazed at other peoples beautifully detailed faces, when I couldn't manage anything more creative than 2 triangular eyes, a pitiful nose and crooked smile. Inevitable, I would always manage to cut through the nose into the eye or mouth leaving a gaping hole in the poor pumpkin's face. It was pitiful pumpkin carving if I'm being honest, but luckily, it doesn't take much to impress 5-year-olds.

This year, I found a kit at Target that had it all, including a little childproof knife... you could imagine my excitement!

So the party began...
It took a little coaxing but he finally put his hands in the slime and dug out the seeds.
Picking the face. He originally wanted a "cross" face, but eventually decided on Gigglin' Gus...

Apparently, this is how I looked while he was cutting with his "childproof knife." Jimmy managed to capture my true feelings, even though I thought I was doing a better job of hiding my fear. ha!
In between pumpkin carving, watching the news for weather updates, and checking out the window for tornadoes, I cooked this jack-o-lantern pizza I had picked up from Papa Murphy's.

Several times, I seriously thought we were going to end up eating this pizza in the basement by lantern light. I was nearly ready to move the party downstairs by the looks of the sky outside and the tornadoes reportedly miles away from our house.
After pizza, we followed up with some much needed Halloween cookies... it was a very stressful evening! ha!
Meet Gigglin' Gus. Trace practically cut the entire thing by himself. I don't think I've ever seen him quite so attentive and engaged with something for so long.

Happy Halloween!!