The Great Pumpkin Carving

Last night we finally did it - we carved pumpkins! As much as we are holiday crazy, you are not going to believe this but we had never carve pumpkins with the kids. Chris and I had done it once before kids at our old house but that was years ago. Every year, we run out of time, too messy. too busy, some lame excuse. Last night, we decided to do it! I made Halloween pancakes for dinners - witches, jack-o-lanterns and bats. They were blueberry and delicious! I got the molds last year at Williams Sonoma - they work great and the kids go crazy!! After pancakes, we brought the pumpkins in from outside and Jackson and Jessica knew what was going to happen. "We are carving pumpkins!!" "Yay!!" They were literally jumping up and down. I read a quick article on how to carve a pumpkin and then I designed a classic jack-o-lantern face which Jackson picked. Daddy's job was to do the lids and scoop out the pumpkins guts! YUCK! Jackson and Jessica each stuck a hand in and decided to continue letting Daddy have this job. I traced my homemade pattern and did the sawing on the face. Our first masterpiece is called Jackson O'Lantern. The next pumpkin we tackled was for Jessica who said she wanted a happy face. I tried a couple of designs freehand but then went to my trusty pumpkin craving booklet with tools and patterns! We found the perfect face - Jess O'Lantern! So happy and cute! She loved it. We saved the hardest for last - Chunky's pumpkin which we called Fang Face. Actually that was the name of the pattern I found on the web. The kids wanted a scary pumpkin for Chunky and all the ones in my carving booklet were TOO HARD! Fang Face was perfect!! I think they all turned pretty good. I can't wait for Halloween!!