Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Operation Olivia Pumpkin

It started with an email from Tammy on Oct. 13. The message said Please tell me that you can buy a pumpkin on base ... because I'm attaching a picture of a picture of my friend Erin as a baby and I'm pretty sure Olivia is just the right size to re-create this picture.



After confirming with Tammy that yes, this child was put inside a carved pumpkin, I explained the idea to Benny. He, of course, was game and soon we were at the commissary comparing Olivia to every large pumpkin we saw. She raised her eyebrows at the comparison, but said nothing. We assumed she wanted to go along with the idea.

Finally we found a pumpkin that was large enough for her body, but not long enough. Engineer Benny suggested cutting holes for her legs to poke out. I agreed and we made the purchase on Oct. 15.

On Nov. 1, we decided to was time for Operation Olivia Pumpkin.

Benny cut open the top while I dressed Olivia in any already stained onesie. As Olivia played with her ABC blocks, Benny pulled out the seeds. We placed a plastic tablecloth inside to prevent a lot of pumpkin goo from getting on her.

Before cutting the leg holes, we did a trial run.



It was confirmed, we need the leg holes.

I wasn't sure how Olivia was going to react to her pumpkin chair, so I had everything in place in case she started screaming. Camera was ready. Witch hat was only a step away. And this was her immediate reaction.





Next the witch hat





Then she tried to take a bite out of her pumpkin


She was loving her pumpkin chair, so we left her in there until dinner.


Now I can't decide if I should enter her photo in a cutest costume contest on the Des Moines Register's Web site.

She has competition. Check out 7-month-old Addison and her first Halloween.


Last night we saw a similar baby in a pumpkin photo on the Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me NPR Web site.

And we thought we were so special.

2 comments:

Tammy said...

Awesome! I'm so glad you did it - these pictures are great! (And the wait, wait ones were pretty great, too. Thanks for sharing.)

Meli said...

Oh yours are the best, you should totally enter her!!! Adorable! I wish I'd peed before reading your post though because I seriously almost wet myself.