It's Pumpkin Carving Day!

For once in a few years, we actually began carving our pumpkins several days before Halloween! Usually, the time slips away from us, and unfortunately, we have carved our pumpkins ON the actual day or even the day AFTER Halloween. Kind of lame, I know! But, this year was an exception! I felt excited that we were all able to "carve" out some time of our busy schedules, and do it together as a family. I admit that I did prep the pumpkins for the kids (and John too!) by cutting the tops off, and scraping out all of the seeds and muck from the inside earlier while the kids were at school. Daniel was on an "off" day for Kindergarten, so he helped. Though, I don't think he really enjoyed what the inside of the pumpkins felt like!




Cleaning them out in advance though, did make the actual carving later, go really quickly.
We started after the boys got home from school. They all picked the kind of pattern they wanted, and then just dug right in. We usually just draw the faces on and then cut them out, but this year, Jackson was going "free" and just started cutting without any pattern or anything.







And, we usually don't buy into the "pumpkin stencil hype". But, this year, I actually bought a little set that had some kinda cute patterns, and those pumpkin tools and scrapers. Let me just say, those scrapers are the BOMB!!! They really made quick work of a job that I can't stand usually. So, I am all for it!!!


And, with the kit, Daniel was able to carve his own pumpkin without much assistance from us. Those little piercing tools are wonderful, and they really made him excited that he could do it by himself!!!



Noah drew his pattern on, but used a battery operated knife to cut his out. That was actually better than I thought it was going to be too, and made a pretty even cut.





John came in and I think carved the quickest pumpkin in history. Literally took him about 5 minutes to complete from start to finish. It's gotta be a record somewhere!!!





I will have to say that those 5 little pumpkins sitting on our porch looked very cute! Each one had it's own little personality and style, just like the individuals who carved them!!!