'Twas the Night Before Halloween!

While we were out trick-or-treating last year, one of the houses in our neighborhood had awesome pumpkins! They were so big that Tyler could have crawled into them and had room to spare! That was when I decided that I would try and grow our own this year. Needless to say, it was a learning process that I will continue on next year. We did manage to grow 3 good size pumpkins, but nowhere near as large as I had thought (our neighbors made it look so easy!). In order to supplement the Halloween decorations this year, I purchased 2 more to decorate with. However, I did not intend for the squirrels to eat them, nor was I aware that they did! One night last week I went out and pushed the half eaten pumpkins to the side and decided that the ones we grew would have to be enough for this year. But.....

Tyler asked me on Monday this week when we were going to make a Jack-o-lantern. I was a bit surprised, but not so much that I got kind of excited that he wanted to carve a pumpkin! We have not carved a pumpkin in years and for anyone who knows how I am with a knife in my hand, they understand why!

In order to satisfy Tyler's curiosity about "making" Jack-o-lantern, I decided that I would go for it this year and carve a pumpkin. In order to make sure I was going to walk away with all 10 fingers, I purchased a pumpkin carving kit. After all, how hard could it be? I failed to see the bigger picture, though.... We didn't have a good sized pumpkin anymore and how was Tyler going to react to sticking his hands into the inside of the pumpkin and digging out the insides?

One thing at a time. I went to 3 different stores yesterday before I found a pumpkin and this is what I brought home:


I managed to cut the top (or the "hat" as Tyler calls it!) without any problems... maybe. It seems it didn't want to come out!
Maybe I should have known then that carving pumpkins was going to be a lot more work than I thought! The closest Tyler got to cleaning out the pumpkin was trying on the "hat" and calling himself a Ty-o-lantern!

Tyler did, however, catch this shot of me preparing to trace my very intricate picture into the pumpkin in order to carve it. Ty chose a picture of a cat... that "easy" and "safe" pumpkin carving kit? Um, not so much. Half way through me tracing the design on the outside of the pumpkin, I ripped it off and went with the traditional face....

The finished product!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

(I still have 10 fingers and no sutures! Our Jack-o-lantern is sitting by the door waiting until tomorrow night when I will put him outside and sacrifice him to squirrels!)