A day late and a dollar short?

Yes, I know Halloween was yesterday. That's okay. Personally, I think any day is a perfect day for carving pumpkins! :) Right?

So, this post could be a lot lengthier than it's gonna be. I'm just exhausted right now, both physically AND emotionally, so I think I'll keep it short and sweet. For the most part. Ha!

Mom was recruited to watch the boys (my crazy nephews) tonight. We decided we'd go on over, too, and have some pasta and carve some pumpkins! We've had four pumpkins sitting in our garage for QUITE some time now, and we'd never gotten around to carving them. There's no better day for that than the day after Halloween, right?

Anyway, mom mentioned I should bring my camera to get some pictures of all the kiddos. Craig's in China right now & has been for the past several weeks and will be for the next couple weeks. She thought he might enjoy seeing all the grandkiddos on my blog. And, so my plan began to unfold.

Since Pa (Craig) can't be here with us, I thought I might... well... fashion a stand-in Pa for the evening. Bwahahaha! Plus, I KNEW he'd love what I had planned. I began my lengthy google research and studying tutorials until I half way figured it out. And, my custom "Pa" pumpkin carving template was complete. Enough.

When you look at this next one, it looks like a crazy mess... the pumpkin, that is. Just don't look at it. It looks better in the dark, I promise! I think mom & Curt were TOTALLY doubting me at this point. Heck, I was doubting myself. Ha! It worked out, though.

Now, I'm no pro at this, and it's obvious. Don't look at the details too closely. I had a few hiccups in my pumpkin carving endeavor. (Read: my first stupid pumpkin was, like, calcified or something... IMPOSSIBLE to cut into. Seriously... there was a thin layer of hard white stuff under the skin. Of course, I didn't discover this until AFTER I'd spent hours transferring the pattern to THAT pumpkin. Sigh.)

Anyway, like I was saying... don't look at it too closely. Or, for that matter, don't look at it too long, either. If you just glance quickly & maybe squint your eyes, it looks *just* like him! Ha! Wink, wink.
LOVE this:

Good times! We miss you, Pa!

On a final note, I just want to acknowledge that there are many people missing Michael today. No matter how many years pass, there's still the ache... As much as I feel like I want to remember him with a big ol' blog post today, I think I'm emotionally ready to burst. I don't want to go there tonight. So, suffice it to say, I miss you so, so much, Michael.