Pumpkins & Ice Cream

I haven't had a chance to post about Zippy's new 'do, and this photo doesn't do it justice, but he his sporting a dark blue mohawk. Punk rock, this kid. So here he is carving his pumpkin this morning. He chose to carve a picture of a bat on his pumpkin and then both Cupcake and Princess Eee attempted to replicate his design with varying results. They did their own since I gave them each a little scraper tool rather than knives. The Spark and #1 both stuck with the traditional, jack-o-lantern face and both carved great spooky faces with no help from me.

J has been gone since the crack of dawn today at an all day review session for his real estate exam that he hopes to take next month, so it was five on one today for pumpkin carving.

Who is this kid?! I still hardly recognize him, but I'm getting used to his new look.

Did all her own scooping too!

And after a seriously kid-friendly dinner of mac-n-cheese, hot dogs, and muffins, I had everything on hand to make our own ice cream with our ice cream maker ball thingy. It takes a while so we have to seize the opportunity to put it to use when I know we will have finished dinner early enough to spend a lot of time on dessert. A Saturday at home with no J for dinner presented the perfect chance. The kids were psyched. I even got a "I like you, Mom, you're really nice" from Zippy while he helped me fill the ball with ice. And then they rolled and rolled.
And it was good. Vanilla with maple syrup mixed in.

And The Spark proclaimed it to be the best ice cream EVER!