Pumpkin Time!

The thirteenth-annual Gray Family Pumpkin Party was last night. It was too cold to carve pumpkins outside so we put some plastic down on the floor inside and still had a great time making a mess with pumpkin guts! (Clean up was so easy, I just wrapped up the plastic with all the mess inside -- a new tradition is born!)

The kids all made wonderful, creative jack-o-lanterns.

Here they all are making the face that's carved on their pumpkins.

My favorite part is always the food. The kids frosted and decorated pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies (Gavin frosted his cookie multiple times) while their parents munched on on other pumpkin-themed treats.

As much as I love the pumpkin party, I love the morning after just as much. Pumpkin pie and pumpkin cookies for breakfast, and leftover pumpkin-curry soup for lunch! Yummy!

Season Surprise

No! I'm not ready for the snow yet!

Lucy's Chemistry Party

This year Lucy wanted to have a chemistry birthday party. Gotta hand it to Lucy -- she always picks a party theme you can't get out of a catalog! Fortunately, we know some chemists (thanks, Jeanne and Troy) and have some good connections in the Norwich chemistry department.

The girls tested the Ph of household liquids, from Windex to Sprite,then made some cool slime out of PVA and Boron. The most exciting experiment was the big, smoky volcano I made out of hydrogen peroxide and manganese dioxide (a bit bigger and smokier than I expected!)

Then we had cake and ice cream and Lucy was thrilled with the gifts her friends brought her.

The girls worked off all their sugar and chemistry excitement by going outside to traipse through the damp leaves in the backyard, hold a pow-wow in the treehouse, then finish it all off with a good, solid round of trampoline tag.

So when the parents came to get them, all the girls were wet, dirty, covered in slime and frosting, and exhausted. I hope these girls are allowed to come back again next year, because I'm sure Lucy will come up with another great party theme.