Boo!

We carved pumpkins this week, for the first time in several years. I'm not even sure Newton would remember having done it before. I bought small pumpkins so there would be less goop to deal with, but that meant small (and harder-to-carve) designs. Newton was excited to use some of the designs from Yes We Carve, so I printed out a couple I thought might fit on our pumpkins. Then of course both boys wanted the same design. Of course! Cindy Lou didn't participate, so we gave her pumpkin a classic jack o'lantern face.

I wish I'd gotten pictures of the process, but Mavis was wrangling Cindy Lou and my hands were covered in pumpkin goo. I wish I wish with all my heart (bonus if you get that reference) I had a picture of the Wizard carefully scooping seeds out of his pumpkin with a soup spoon. He toiled assiduously for a good 20 minutes, and while he didn't remove any of the stringy pulp, he did remove a good share of the seeds from his pumpkin.

Newton helped with transferring the designs from the stencils, and then I did the actual carving. It went LOADS easier (those pumpkin-carving-kit knives are dull dull dull) once I figured out that I should thin the target wall from the inside with a melon baller before carving. Taking it down to 3/4" or so made a world of difference. Even then, the stripes on the Obama-logo Os were beastly hard, and each of the two Obama pumpkins has a goof on it.