Senior Pictures of the Jack-o-Lanterns, because the Real Senior in the Family Won't Cooperate

If YOU were a senior in college you'd let me take senior pictures of you, right? You'd let me coordinate cute outfits for you that go with the several picturesque locations I've planned out (I know where soooo many nice bridges are, for one thing!), and you'd be super into all the whimsical and flattering poses I've thought up, and you'd keep forever all the lovely photos I made of you as mementos of your magical senior year.

You'd definitely not be like my kid, who cares not for the frippery and folderol of the senior year season of life. Admittedly, she's stoked for some of her college's senior year traditions, like the few days between finals and graduation when apparently the seniors just get to run around campus, eat free snacks, and get their photos taken sitting behind the president's desk and standing on (GASP! The taboo of it!!!) the college's seal. You know, the one that you're not supposed to step on or you'll be cursed and won't graduate? I guess the curse can't take you after your final grades are in! 

But the year-long build-up to that last fun week? My college senior says no, thank you to that. She's got resumes to update and applications to fill out and comprehensive exams to study for and her last eight classes to pass. There is no room for whimsical nostalgia, much less a photo shoot that may or may not require several location changes and outfit changes and possibly more than one single instance of doing what her mother has asked her to do.

So sometimes you just have to pretend that you're taking senior pictures when you've got a kid pinned in your viewfinder, even if all you're actually doing is taking some snapshots while y'all carve pumpkins over Fall Break:

I love how ever since they were both little, one kid--the same kid each time!--has always tried to find the largest carving pumpkin in the pumpkin patch, and the other kid--also the same kid each time!--has always tried to find the smallest pumpkin that can still reasonably be carved.

I think this year is that kid's smallest pumpkin yet!

I don't know what kind of magic was used to make those cheapo pumpkin carving tools that you always see everywhere, but they randomly work great and last forever!

This weekend will mark our yearly tradition of finally kicking the Jack-o-lanterns over the edge of the wall so they can compost in peace under the bushes and we can put Christmas decorations there instead, so I thought I would memorialize their last week with us with a set of proper senior pictures just for them:

After this, they get to collect their free bagel, get their picture taken behind the president's desk, and finally stand on the school seal, and then it's off to new adventures!

P.S. Want to see what we're going to do with a bushel of apples, a gallon of cider, and two Jack-o-lantern pumpkins, one very large and one very weird? Follow along on my Craft Knife Facebook page, where cider cocktails and caramel apples are made, and teenagers are in charge of the applesauce!