Jack-O-Lantern Carving.

When Halloween creeps closer we like to give its pending arrival one final preparatory nod.  

The selection process is a delicate one and every bit a part of the tradition.

Then we gather at Uncle Sam and Aunt Lindee's house where we eat chili, mummy hotdogs, and deviled eggs. 

When the kids start getting too restless we pile into the garage where the real fun begins.

We only had one sliced finger this year (Cali, of course), because apparently it's hard to remember that knife rules still apply when you're encouraged to stab at a pumpkin with a sharp object.

For the record, this is one sliced finger more than we usually have.

Casidee was happy to sit in the background with her book and I was happy to help the kids so ours never got carved.

Tayler, the ambitious soul, picked a rather large pumpkin and by the time she had finally, finally finished cleaning the guts out, it was time to go home.

She never got around to actually carving the face into it, even after all that hard work of gutting it.

Sorry Tay.

Maybe pick a smaller one next year?

Sean's

Brynn's

Jayme's

Cali's

Pumpkin Massacre.

This post was originally written and posted on October 20, 2011.

West's sister, Lindee, had her annual Halloween dinner and pumpkin carving party. Lindee throws a good family friendly Halloween bash and we love going every year. Her house was decorated fun, inside and out, and in the garage the massacre... I mean, the creativity was flowing.

Also I heard this song on the radio this morning :).

Jayme's werewolf jack o lantern is eating the ribbon, not puking. We need to make that clarification.

Sean enlisted the help of Uncle Sam. 

 Cali kept carving away at her mouth after this picture was taken, making the mouth huge.

It's officially Halloween season when you have pumpkin guts in your hair. 

We're working on our costumes right now. Sadly, we won't be able to have Jay and Sean with us this year on Halloween night (Boo!!! (haha pun intended)), but maybe we can finagle them for the trunk or treat. Right now we're pulling together costumes for a dead skateboarder, a half devil half angel, the Cheshire cat, and a vampire. 

And if we're lucky on trunk or treat, we'll also be pulling together costumes for a dead hula girl and the grim reaper. 

We're full steam ahead. 

A lot of them are repeat costumes that we already had so we only need to gather a few small items, but the half devil half angel is new and that's taking a little work. I finished a large piece of it last night and I'm really pleased with how it's turning out.

Carving Pumpkins.

This post was originally written and posted on October 7, 2008.

I was a little nervous for Saturday.

West was holding a birthday dinner with pumpkin carving for his mom. The only other time that I had met his mom the evening ended with her leaving in a huff. Nothing of my doing, but still, I was a little nervous to face another gathering with her.

I worried for nothing though, it was actually a great evening.

West made dinner and we carved pumpkins in the garage because of our numbers being too big (his sister and Aunt and Uncle and neighbors were there also) for his kitchen and the rain prevented us from going outside.

West even turned on his fog machine.

Jayme's pumpkin: She had to be different and get a white one.

Sean's pumpkin:

Cali's pumpkin: Which for those of you who have ever had a three year old know that means this pumpkin was actually mine.

Casidee's pumpkin.

West's pumpkin:

Which looks a lot like he does when the camera comes out.


See what I mean?

Brynn's pumpkin:

Tayler's pumpkin, which looks really cool all lit up with no mouth.

Holy moly, that's a lot of pumpkins.  I think it's safe to say that our porches will be safe from the spooks this Halloween.

Give Away: Pumpkin Masters Carving Package

It struck us over the weekend...

boredom.

But it just so happened that we had some pumpkins from our garden, and a box of fun kits from Pumpkin Masters so we decided to try our hand at some of the designs.

Let it be known that I love carving pumpkins (considering my track record of loving all things October and Halloween, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone).

One Halloween when we lived up on the farm in Washington, we found a field that was full of pumpkins.  Pumpkins for as far as the eye could see, a sea of orange.

They had already sold their fill to the stores and what was then lying in the field was free grabs.

If you can carry it you can have it.

So I took my baby girls and some friends and we loaded up the back of my Suburban with pumpkins.

And I proceeded to stay up late into the night (watching Disney's Ichobod Crane, no less) and I carved pumpkin after pumpkin as decorations for our church's trunk or treat.

I used Pumpkin Master's patterns and knives then too, and that was... 9 years ago?

This year I got a package chalk full of all sorts of cool things from Pumpkin Masters, there was the usual carving patterns, but then we got to try new stuff like shaving the pumpkins, and hole punches, and a kit for little kids, as well as some blinking lights to put inside the jack-o-lanterns when they're finished.

(Guess what, I get to give a package like this away!  Enter below).

One word of caution... if you have a thicker pumpkin, you might want to help your child cut the lid with a bigger knife and thin out the meat a little. Our poor little Pumpkin Masters knife just wasn't quite up to the task of our big pumpkin and it's thick meat, though it was perfect for our other regular sized pumpkins.

 

I like using the Pumpkin Masters kits because I can let The Circus loose with their imaginations on the pumpkins and I don't have to worry about them using big knives.  The Pumpkin Masters knives are perfect for carving safely, and I find that even I, as an adult, prefer to use them over my big kitchen knives.

 We have the pumpkins from our garden sitting on our porch now, and we've been making big designing plans on how to use our new tools and patterns for our "real" Halloween Jack-o-lanterns closer to Halloween.

Thanks to Pumpkin Masters, one of you can play with pumpkin carving tools and patterns too!

I get to give away the same kit that we got:

(here's a reminder picture for you)

 Entering is easy, just use this handy dandy rafflecopter to enter.
This give away will only be open for two days, it will close tomorrow, Wednesday October 16th at midnight, mountain time.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I want to give Pumpkin Masters time to mail you your box in time for carving pumpkins for Halloween.

Winner will be emailed on Thursday morning where I will ask for your info and then send it on to the good people of Pumpkin Masters who will then mail your goodies to you.

But remember, you can always buy these fun kits at your local grocery, drug, or craft store.

And! Pumpkin Masters is having a pumpkin carving contest. To enter just share a picture of you carved creation by one of these ways between now and October 31:
post it in instagram or twitter with #PumpkinMasters2013
submit your picture via the Facebook app
email your picture to: social@pumpkinmasters.com

They have six prizes to give away, including $5,000 for the Best Pumpkin.
Specific rules for their contest HERE.

{picsource: pinterest}

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.