I am officially halfway done with this story! Crazy right? I never thought that I would actually be able to pull this off, and now look at where we are! Thank you all so much for reading!

Also, some prompts would be greatly appreciated. I'm starting to run out of ideas again.

"Why are there pumpkins on the island?" Regina asked, walking into the kitchen.

"We're gonna carve them!" Lola said excitedly. "I gonna carve a princess on mine."

"I'm doing a cat," Ava said, holding up a picture for Regina to see. "It's supposed to be black, but I don't know how I'm going to do that with it being carved."

"We'll just pretend that it's a black cat," Emma said, kissing the top of her head.

"I'm doing a skeleton," Henry said. "Something a little harder, but I think that I can do it."

"I'm sure you can," Regina said. "But I'd like us to put newspaper on the island to keep things clean."

"Right," Emma said. "Forgot about that." She waved her hand and magicked newspaper onto the island, much to the wide-eyed delight of Lola.

"Magic!" Lola exclaimed, clapping her little hands.

Regina smiled, wrapping her arms around Lola and squeezing her gently. "Magic."

"I do magic too," Lola said.

"Lucky," Henry mumbled. He cut the top of off his pumpkin, using his hand to pull out the insides.

Ava shrugged. "Magic seems to have a lot of responsibility. I wouldn't want to have to deal with it." She made a face as she reached into her own pumpkin, pulling out the insides.

"Don't forget to take out the seeds," Regina said. "They'll make a very good snack later."

Lola put her hand into her pumpkin, only to quickly withdraw it and make a face. "That's yucky."

Emma laughed. "I know. But Henry and Ava are doing it, like big kids. You can do it too. Unless you're not a big girl?"

"I a big girl!" Lola protested. She reached her hand back into her pumpkin and began pulling out the insides like Henry and Ava.

Emma winked at Regina. Question Lola's abilities to be a "big girl" and you could get her to do anything.

After all of the kids had gotten the pumpkins cleaned out and their seeds put off to the side, Emma and Regina helped them correctly position their pictures on the pumpkin. Henry and Ava began poking holes in the outline, while Regina helped Lola do hers. Which meant that Regina was really doing it.

"Did they have pumpkin carving in the Enchanted Forest?" Henry asked.

Regina shrugged. "Not that I'm aware of. If there was, it was something that only the villagers did. I'm not sure."

"It seems like something royalty would do though," Ava said. "It could be a way for them to show off their talents."

"They'd probably just get someone else to do it for them," Regina pointed out. "Something this messy and time consuming would never have been something that royals would do."

"But it's fun," Ava said.

"Which is exactly why royals would never do it," Regina said, chuckling.

"So what did you do in the Enchanted Forest for Halloween?" Ava asked. "You had to have at least done something."

Regina nodded. "There were balls of course. Usually with masks. It was all very mysterious."

"Did you ever go to one?" Henry asked.

Regina shook her head. "My mother said that those balls were simply a way for princes to get away with taking a princess home that wasn't meant to be his bride. Since there were masks, no one knew who the other was."

"That sounds like a modern day party," Henry mumbled, going back to carving his pumpkin.

"Mommy, work faster," Lola whined. "I wanna see the pretty princess."

Regina smiled before taking the picture off of the pumpkin. "Now your other mother is going to carve this for you."

"It's not done yet?" Lola asked.

"Not yet," Emma said, switching places with Regina. "But don't worry Lo; I'll have this done in no time."

Once all of the pumpkins had been carved successfully, it was time to put them outside. Each pumpkin got a candle, and was put out on the front porch. Emma and Regina would carve their pumpkins later, when everyone was in bed and it was easier to work.

"They look pretty," Lola said. Thanks to help from Emma and Regina, her pumpkin had turned out good. Henry and Ava's had turned out better than they had expected, especially since they had been left to their own devices.

"Can we carve more?" Ava asked.

Emma laughed. "You usually only make one."

"But it was so much fun," Ava argued.

"And now we have seeds that'll last for a month," Regina said. "One pumpkin each is fine. We'll do other things to celebrate Halloween, I promise."

The Swan-Mills family stood outside, each smiling at the pumpkins on the front porch. This is what family was supposed to be.