Boy, oh boy. It’s going to be a long eighteen years of taking pictures if this is any indication of my future! As I talked about in my pumpkin pickin’ post, you have to be very time efficient when photographing babies.  Well, I didn’t think about the fact that I may need to prep Mike as well (whoops), but I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s start from the beginning.

In preparation, I pre-carved the pumpkin during E’s nap yesterday (inside like a crazy person, Lilly loved it until I tried to put her in the pumpkin).

If you are a pumpkin anything fan (I mean, c’mon who isn’t), I’m sure you’ve done your share of pumpkin carving but I’ve got to tell you, if you’re not keeping the seeds you are doing it wrong!  I seriously love roasted pumpkin seeds, and they are the easiest, most versatile snack to make ever!   There are different ways depending on the amount of time you have.

I decided to prep them by boiling them in salted water for what was supposed to be ten minutes.  I got distracted playing with E (surprise) & completely forgot about them, so they boiled for who knows how long. I set them out to dry and after a while (again, who knows, it’s all a blur) and seasoned them to my liking — salt, pepper, garlic & everyday seasoning from Trader Joe’s.

I popped them in the oven at 350º & set the timer for 15 minutes.  Well, they were still a little chewy for my liking so I popped ’em back in for 5 more minutes. BIG MISTAKE. Next thing I know I start hearing a racket in the kitchen–uh, what?! It was like I was making popcorn or something! The seeds were exploding & popping all over the oven HAHAHA talk about a #momfail.  Luckily, the larger seeds were salvaged (& delicious) but we definitely won’t forget that little episode!

^^sorry for the tangent…back to the picture talk.  E was well rested & fed, I had set the props up outside in the shade and tested the lighting — we were ready to go! So Mike trucks over with a naked baby and tries standing him in the pumpkin…he’s 10 weeks old.

At this point E is a little confused, but he’s okay.  So I explain to Mike he needs to frog leg him so he will fit comfortably. I quickly found out that Mike doesn’t know what frog legged means & E is not a very patient baby (no longer confused, currently becoming infuriated lol).

We finally got him in the pumpkin & I’m desperately trying to take shots without Mike in them and it is a shit show.  E is screaming, Mike is yelling about feeling like an awful parent and how he is going to fall in the pumpkin & get stuck all while I’m making car noises trying to get a smile (GOOD ONE, like that was going to happen).

So I obviously didn’t get the basic baby in a pumpkin pic, but I got a priceless angry baby pic that will be in E’s senior yearbook. #momwin…?

Somehow, I convinced Mike to let me take a few more of E just being propped up against the pumpkin after we calmed him down but he  was obviously not a fan.

We made our way back inside, cooled off (80° in October), and started laughing about how crazy I am while E is cooing in the background, happy as can be (really kid, where was that 10 minutes ago).  I tell ya what, life with a newborn is a roller coaster but I love it. Here’s to a lifetime of pictures my boys won’t want to take!