Maleficent and Pumpkins

Madison is wearing her Maleficent costume here, and just looks stunning.  She walked down the stairs and said, "Well, well, well..."  As if she were that fairy herself.  Daddy was continuing his work on a pumpkin idea today, one he's been developing.  It's a Maleficent pumpkin.

The stem was just perfect, and looks just like a dragon's head.  Daddy painted it black, and added green eyes, and some wings as well, printed out on card stock and hot-glued in place.  It turned out really well!

This might be my favorite pumpkin I've ever done.  These tools have been fun to use, and suddenly I feel empowered to do a bit more with pumpkin carving now, although it's pretty close to the end of that sort of season.

Nana and Ye-Ye came over to visit, and it was a really enjoyable time.  We were carving a few pumpkins, but we also played a game of "Escape from the Haunted Mansion" together.  Madison loves playing that game, and had fun playing against her grandparents.  She barely won, but in that sort of game, everyone's a winner.  Meanwhile, Daddy was carving away, and we were all talking away too.  Madison did another pumpkin while we were there tonight, this one with a VFD logo on it:

It turned out well, even if it was done rather quickly tonight.  These were smallish pumpkins, but it was more about just hanging out together.  Afterwards, we went for our yearly tour of the neighborhood, checking out all the lights and decorations of the season.  There were so many houses with orange and purple lights, spotlights, webs, cemeteries, and all sorts of spooky sights.  We drove around slowly, taking it all in.  It was a nice drive, a preview of the path we'll be walking soon for a bit of trick-or-treating!

Madison got an A on a test today, and continued the Great Cranberry Battle at school with an early visit to Live to Give.  School was fun, and work was fun too - Daddy got a gift from a friend, a game called "Monster Crunch:  Breakfast Battle."  It's a game you'll see here soon enough when we play it, but I'm so looking forward to having a round or two playing this card game that uses all the licensed monster cereal characters!

Oh, and one more thing.  Not since our chimney sweep have we had such an obscure professional come by:  today we had a piano tuner at the house, and he spent a few hours with Madison's piano.  The end result is something that made her smile.  Nana and Ye-Ye treated us to a piano tuning, as they had to have their own piano tuned as well, and it turned out very well.  We have a piano that's good as new, and in fact the visitor told us that this piano has been rarely used.  How blessed we are to have that in the house, and in fact how blessed we are in all things - it was a very nice day today!