Leftover Pumpkins? Try Pumpkin Bowling, but Only if You're Ready to Laugh

We were at the grocery store yesterday picking up a few last minute items for Thanksgiving when the lady changing a display gave us a bunch of pumpkins for free. As I pondered what to do with them in the three seconds I had between telling the 5 year old that no, we didn't need any more of those green twisty things by the produce bags and realizing the 2 year old had eaten most of a raw green bean (true story), I decided we should destroy them. The pumpkins, that is.

The Set Up

So today after the big boys were out of school I cut a bunch of paper in half and asked them to decorate them with things they were grateful for. So of course we had ones covered in poop emojis (he's thankful for EMOJIs), a tv, toys, and other very meaningful things. So this was a very heartfelt activity.

But since we then took them out back and hucked pumpkins at them, it's probably all for the best.

Need

So you need

1. 10 water bottles

2. 10 1/2 sheets of decorated grateful papers and tape (optional)

3. at least 1 pumpkin

4. a long outdoor space. You could do this inside but with these kids, that would not go well.

I just had them tape their gratitude papers around water bottles and we were all set. A half sheet fits a water bottle perfectly, btw.

Love that the 2 and 7 year olds are giving bunny ears to the water bottles.

The Rules

Rules? There's not really rules. One at a time you huck your pumpkin down the alley and try to knock over all the pins. If the pumpkin was way off course we'd call a redo.

It was helpful to have one person rotate through pin duty and another on pumpkin retrieval.

The Verdict

This was serious fun. We put on the Eye of the Tiger Pandora station and rocked out. The little ones pulled out the slide and used it to roll the pumpkin down like the ramp at the bowling alley. The 9 year old even came up with trick shots. And Matt had the only strike of the night. The kids voted we make this a tradition every year with our old pumpkins and I agree.