Twas the night before

This was us last night: the boys were doing up our pumpkins, I was trying out a caramel corn recipe (which did not turn out well, but I will keep searching and find one that does), and Mallory, who has been having a love affair with the DVD player lately, was watching the opening credits to each of the kids' DVDs before swapping it out and moving on to the next. She doesn't even wait to see the movie; the credits are enough for her. Freak.
Do my photos look a little different to you than normal? I was also testing out my new wide angle lens that finally arrived yesterday. A 50mm lens on a regular camera is essentially the same field of vision that you have with the naked eye, but on most DSLR camera's there's a 1.6 crop factor - meaning my 50mm lens reads more like an 85mm lens, essentially making it a short telephoto. My new lens is a 20mm fixed lens which reads like a 32 on a normal camera (funny, why do I keep saying 'normal' - digital cameras are the NEW normal). So it's a wide angle for me, and would be ultra wide if I were using it on a full frame camera.

Photography lecture over.

I still can't get over how you can see my entire house in each shot, though. I'll have to be more vigilant about baskets full of dirty laundry and other incriminating background clutter in future pictures. Mallory wandered in and was intrigued by the Mr. Potato Head pieces that we are using for the second year running to speed up the pumpkin-decorating process. Then she found the candy corn, and was much more smitten with that. I am standing much closer to her than it would appear in this photo, making sure she did not fall off the counter. The wide angle can be deceiving. Liam quite enjoyed the pumpkin carving process until Chad told him to scoop out the seeds from inside. He was pretty grossed out by the prospect, and said mom could do it, but I deferred, and Chad did all the dirty work in the end. If I remember correctly, this is Liam instructing Chad on how big to make the mouth. I'm glad Mallory didn't wake up with nightmares last night because this is Chad giving her a big "BLARGHHH!" with the finished scary-faced pumpkin. If she'd woken up, I would have given Chad a kick to go in and settle her down again. Cause and effect.