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Fundy stands up on his top toes as he tries to see onto the counter.
He pouts as he, yet again, can’t see anything.
He looks at his Grandma who’s busy preparing the countertop to make sure they don’t have too big of a mess when they’re done.
“Gwannn!!” Fundy whines, getting her attention.
“Yes, foxy?” She walks around the corner to where he’s standing and looks down at him with a fond smile.
“I can’t see!” Fundy crosses his arms and looks at her grumpily.
She gasps dramatically, “Well that just won’t do will it?”
“Nah ah.” Fundy agrees.
“We must fix this immediately!” With that, she grabs his tiny body and lifts him with ease into her arms. She twirls around the kitchen with him as he squeals.
“Gwanma!!” Fundy giggles letting out another high-pitched squeal as she lowers him close to the ground and then hoists him back up.
“You said you couldn’t see and now look you’ve got a birdseye view!” She brings his face up to hers and presses their noses together.
Fundy scrunches his nose with a giggle as Kristin chuckles.
“Alright, you ready to start?”
“Yep!” Fundy smiles brightly at the reminder of what they’re doing (the whole reason he’s at his grandparent’s house in the first place).
“Great! Let me go get the step stool and we’ll be all ready!” With that, she gently sets him on the countertop, lightly boops his nose once more, and disappears into the garage.
Fundy twists around and surprises himself by moving what he’s sitting on.
He looks down and sees a trash bag underneath him.
Twisting again he delightfully finds that the bag twists with him. Twisting with more vigor this time he can’t help the giggles he lets out as the bag continues to move with him.
He doesn’t hear the garage door open in his excitement and yelps in surprise when he feels two hands grab his sides.
He starts laughing uncontrollably when they start tickling his sides and sees through half-closed eyes his Grandma smiling broadly down at him.
“What were you doing little one?” She questions jokingly serious.
“It-it moves!” He says through gasps of breath and laughter.
“Hmmm. It does. And so do you!” With that, the tickling gets faster causing Fundy’s eyes to swell with tears.
“Ahhh!” He laughs trying to hit her hands away but not being able to do so seeing as he’s a four-year-old and she’s decidedly not.
Suddenly the tickling stops. Fundy takes a minute to catch his breath and when he looks over Kristin is looking at him like he’s the most special thing in the entire world.
“Alright,” She claps her hands,” Are you ready to officially start this year’s annual pumpkin carving event?”
Fundy cheers while she grabs him and sets him on the step stool she brought in.
“Ok first things first, the rules!” Kristin announces setting Fundy’s pumpkin (that had been specially picked from the pumpkin patch himself) in front of him. “Knives are off-limits and you have to try your best.” She winks after the last one.
Fundy nods seriously at that, as serious as a four-year-old who can’t wait to do something can at least.
Kristin smiles and grabs her pumpkin from farther on the counter where Fundy can’t reach.
“I set out some carving utensils and there’s a booklet with things you can carve,” Kristin tells him showing him the booklet and pointing to the utensils.
“Can we stawt now?” Fundy asks jumping slightly in excitement.
Kristin huffs a laugh.
“Ok just let me know if you need any help. And let me cut the top open first.” She walks over the drawers and grabs the largest knife Fundy’s ever seen and walks back over.
“Can I twy?” Fundy asks standing on his tiptoes while trying to reach for the blade of the knife.
Kristin quickly pulls it out of his reach and sets it down where he can’t grab it.
“Fundy I just told you knives are off-limits.” She looks at him with a slightly scolding look, though she could never manage to actually scold her precious grandbaby.
“But-”
“No buts.” She gives him a light warning look and he huffs slumping his shoulders.
“Mhk.” He quietly resigns.
“Thank you. Now, are you ready to start carving?”
At the reminder, he perks up and starts jumping again.
“Yes yes yes!”
“Let me open the top and you can get started.”
“Huwwy! I want to stawt!”
Kristin just laughs lightly in disbelief before doing what was asked.
After cutting the pumpkin’s top off (and thankfully not cutting anything, or anyone, else) Kristin lets Fundy get to work scooping out the insides.
“Make sure to separate the seeds from the rest so we can bake them.” She reminds him as she works on scooping out her pumpkin.
“Ok!” Fundy sticks part of his tongue out of his mouth in concentration as he takes a big chunk of pumpkin guts out.
He dumps the guts onto the bag that’s covering the countertop and begins picking the seeds out.
“Here you keep digging out the pumpkin and I’ll separate the seeds.” Kristin proposes as she walks over to the quickly growing pile of pumpkin guts on the counter.
“Mhk!” Fundy isn’t completely paying attention as he continues to scoop out the guts and takes a little time with each scoop to grab the most obvious seeds out of the pile.
Kristin just laughs and shakes her head while she begins picking apart the stringy pumpkin insides to separate them from the seeds.
After a long, while the whole pumpkin is cleared out (ok not the whole pumpkin a four-year-old was the one who scooped it out. But most of the insides!) and the seeds had been set off onto a baking tray and put off to the side as the oven heats up.
“Alright, sweetie what design do you want to do?” Kristin asks with a gentle smile as she looks at him.
Fundy makes a show of putting his hand on his chin for a moment before lighting up and saying, “Spoopy face!”
It took more restraint than Kristin thought she had not to coo at him.
“What kind of spoopy face?” She asks while trying not to laugh at how he said it.
“The scawy kind!” Fundy announces proudly.
Kristin takes a sharp inhale of breath to keep herself from laughing out and then cooing at her sweet little foxling.
“Ok, you start with that and just tell me if you need any help.”
“Okie dokie!” With that Fundy grabs the small carver that came with the carving kit and starts cutting out pieces of the pumpkin.
Kristin watches from the side to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.
As Fundy carves his masterpiece, Kristin gets cleaning supplies ready. Even though she had covered the counter Fundy managed to get some on himself and the floor.
Shaking her head in joking exasperation she grabs the baking tray with the pumpkin seeds and moves it to another counter where she leaves it to go into the pantry and grab the salt. She returns shortly after and sprinkles each seed with a little bit of salt.
After taking a look at each seed she’s satisfied with the amount of seasoning on each. The oven dings to alert the fact it’s warmed up enough and she clasps her hands happily before grabbing the tray and carefully setting it in the oven.
When she turns around, she sees Fundy still hard at work carving his pumpkin and decides she’s not going to clean him up just yet seeing as he still has the possibility of making a mess of himself.
So she sits off to the side and keeps a close eye on him.
“Annndddd done!” Fundy exclaims happily after a few more minutes.
“Can I see sugar plum?” Kristin asks, even though from where she was sitting she could clearly see everything he was doing.
“Mhm! Look at his supa scawy face!” Fundy puffs his chest proudly as he looks at his handiwork.
Kristin takes a moment to collect herself so she doesn’t accidentally hurt Fundy’s feelings by laughing or cooing at how obvious it is he’s young.
The pumpkin in question has chunks missing near the top that you could vaguely tell were meant to be triangles and a large rectangle missing near the bottom.
“I’m very scared.” Kristin nods solemnly as she mentally reminds herself to take as many pictures as possible.
“But don’t wowwy Gwanma! I’ll pwotect you!” Fundy puts his little hands on his hips and looks at the pumpkin defiantly.
“My savior!” Kristin says dramatically picking Fundy up and sitting him on her hip.
“I’ll save you fwom all the hawm!” Fundy declares smiling up at her.
Kristin wants to cry.
How is anything allowed to be this cute?
“I know you will.” She gives him an Eskimo kiss to solidify this pact they’ve made.
Fundy squeals and tries to wiggle out her grasp but she just holds him tighter and peppers his face with kisses.
“Gw-gwanma stowp it!” He hiccups in between laughs.
“Never!” She laughs twirling them around the kitchen again.
They twirl until the timer on the oven goes off and Kristin sets him down to take out the seeds before they burn.
Kristin sets the tray on the counter and goes to grab bowls for each of them. When her back is turned Fundy snatches one off of the tray and pops it into his mouth. He instantly regrets it and starts fanning his mouth.
“Hot!” He whines.
“Fundy! You can’t eat them right out of the oven they’re still way too hot!” Kristin frets as she checks his mouth to make sure nothing’s too burnt. Luckily it’s just a few tastebuds and nothing else.
“Let’s wait for them to cool for a moment and then we can eat them.” Fundy nods and waits patiently as Kristin waves a random piece of paper she found over the seeds.
“Here you going little one.” Kristin hands Fundy a small bowl filled with seeds when they’re finally cool enough to eat.
“Yay!” Fundy sprints over to the living room couch as soon as the bowl is in his grasp and Kristin can only watch in exasperated fondness as he begins shoveling them in his mouth.
She grabs her own bowl and sits down next to him.
That’s how, a few hours later, Phil finds them.
Snuggled up on the couch, bowls forgotten about laying empty on the floor as they sleep soundly on the couch.
Phil just chuckles, shaking his head, and leaves them be.
He gets to work cleaning the mess in the kitchen to the sound of soft snores emanating from the couch.