Now that Claire is going to "real school", I have to get used to some new things. Since August, she's had to turn in a couple of class projects, Jade has sold candy (ugh!) at his shop, and there's a bake sale on Tuesday. Also, I have to bring milk for the Book Fair "Muffins for Moms" affair in a couple of weeks. I'm adjusting.
In addition to all of that, Claire has decided to participate in 4-H this year. Her first activity was a pumpkin decorating contest last week. Claire wanted to create Cinderella's coach with her pumpkin. Whoa! I thought that was going to be way too difficult to accomplish. I asked her to scale down her idea a little bit. We tossed around a couple of ideas and she decided to create a ladybug out of her pumpkin.
I thought it would be really cute to get a different colored pumpkin to use as the spots on the ladybug and a smaller pumpkin to use as the head. We bought a "regular-sized" pumpkin, a small pumpkin and a cushaw (since we couldn't find a green pumpkin). Here's what a cushaw looks like:
As with all of my ideas, this turned out to be much more difficult than imagined. We ended up drawing 12 holes on the pumpkin. Unfortunately, cutting out holes is much harder than drawing them. We ended up calling on the services of my dear, sweet husband. He put his "McGyver" hat on and decided to use a hole saw to cut out the holes.
You know what happens next...cutting 12 matching holes out of the cushaw for the dots. That was a little easier since the cushaw was softer. After Jade did all the hard work for us, Claire and I got busy decorating her little ladybug. We ended up using straws for legs, Play-Doh accessory eyes and a scrap of pumpkin fabric for the ladybug's hair bow. I give you...Lady Bugkin!
I think her father might have been a spider. Claire was so proud of her creation. It was interesting getting our ladybug through the carpool line at school the next morning, but she made it in one piece.
We couldn't wait to pick up Claire from school and find out if she won a ribbon or not. Ethan even prayed for her pumpkin to win a prize that morning. Claire walked to the van with a big grin on her face. She won a blue ribbon! How great is that?
Next year, I think I'll let her do Cinderella's coach. I think it'll be much easier.
That is so awesome!!! Her pumpkin totally rocks. I saw something like that on HGTV once. I can totally relate on all the "extra" things that go along with school. There is always so much going on, little donations here and there, extra money for whatever project they have planned!
Posted by: Liz | October 20, 2009 at 09:25 AM
Great job ... although Claire looks like she's snorting something :)
Posted by: Sharon | October 19, 2009 at 08:02 AM
That thing is awesome! Way to go, Claire! (and all the little people who made this possible)
Posted by: Nichole | October 19, 2009 at 07:09 AM