Pumpkin Carving 2008

Yesterday's big activity was carving our pumpkins!

It's a little bit earlier than I really like to do them. They can get a whole lotta gross in the two weeks between now and Halloween. But we let the children choose their pumpkins at a local farm during Skeeter's company's "family day" and they were excited to get on with it.

I bought one of those "pumpkin carving kits" from Target for Sass to make it easier. She chose a happy face (not a surprise; she's a happy child). She gutted the pumpkin (loving the mess it made) all on her own.


Then she traced the pattern.


Then Skeeter carved it. With help.


Sass was quite annoyed that we wouldn't let her wield sharp instruments all by herself. Hey, what can I say? We are big ol' meanie-parents.

A little aside here: Can you believe that this was Skeeter's first time carving a pumpkin? Really! His parents aren't exactly the fun-loving, tradition-following types. Now I am a little embarrassed that I always did the carving in previous years while he was off at work.

Spyder's pumpkin-carving experience had nothing to do with patterns and everything to do with personal creativity. He decided to make a top hat and wand, in keeping with his "all magic, all the time" life theme. And for the first time, I let him do the whole thing on his own, with supervision of course, but no suggestions or advice from me.

He drew out his pattern on the pumpkin and started carving.



Unfortunately, he got a little too carve-happy and ended up carving out part of his design. Whoops!


Toothpicks to the rescue!



All better!


Sass's pumpkin turned out very cutesy, which thrilled her beyond measure.



Spyder's pumpkin turned out, eh, not as well as I had hoped, but he thinks it's awesome. And really, he is the only person who needs to be pleased by it anyway, so it's all good. :)