Carving Day

Today was the day. I decided it was time to carve our pumpkins. This is always such an exciting time for me - not so much for Matt. He complies because he knows it has to be done. Carving pumpkins is not exactly his favorite thing to do. Of course I won't let him get away with simple faces, either. Last year I couldn't find our carving tools so I ran to the store at the last minute. The only tools they had were part of a kit, including a pattern book. What fun! I perused the pages, found my two favorites, and shared them with Matt. There was no talking me out of those two designs. So, here is what we ended up with last year...

So this year as I was looking through that same pattern book, I was disappointed with the remaining pattern choices. I spent some time online browsing free pumpkin carving patterns and was quite impressed with what I found. One of the neatest sites was Better Homes and Gardens (http://www.bhg.com/). They not only had some neat patterns, but they also had a pumpkin stencil maker. It allowed you to select from a variety of face parts and create your own pattern. Then you could either print it or e-mail it to yourself. Although I didn't choose to go that route, I thought it was a neat concept. Check it out... http://www.bhg.com/bhg/multimedia.jsp?multimediaId=/templatedata/bhg/multimedia/data/PumpkinStencilMaker.xml

After quite a bit of searching, I found my two favorites and shared them with Matt (the poor thing...even if he didn't like them, he would never say so and if he thought they were too difficult, I would just try to convince him that we could do it, so he really has no choice in the matter...such a good guy!) and then "traced" my pattern on the pumpkin. Connor helped remove the insides, although he wasn't too excited about touching them with his hands. Matt completed his pattern and got Carly's assistance removing the insides. She, too, did not want to touch the slimy "guts" with her hands. Matt and I both began carving while Connor and Carly played in the rain. They finally got bored with that and decided to come inside. Matt and I were left on the porch carving their pumpkins by ourselves. We joked and laughed as we wondered what anyone driving by watching us would think as we sat on the porch by ourselves carving pumpkins without our children. Who's pumpkins are these anyway!? Anyway...we were thrilled with the end products - and so were Connor and Carly! This year I decided to get some of those battery powered flickering "candles" to put inside the pumpkins rather than using candles. I'm probably the last person on earth to think of that, but I am excited that they really work. So, what do you think...???

This is the one I did... (and it was marked "beginner", by the way)and here's Matt's...