The Great Pumpkin

Whew, times flies when you’re having fun! I played ‘nanny’ for my 7 month old nephew this week while his Mom was at a work conference in Virginia/DC so Halloween kind of feels like it’s snuck up on me. Still, kids made it through their inaugural costume runs at their school parties just fine and we’re all set for trick-or-treat tonight.

No Halloween is complete without some carved squash and with my trip we opted to carve last Sunday night. The kids picked their pumpkins out of the patch a few weeks ago and I think they had as much fund choosing and hauling as they did carving.

It is always fun to see what they will carve. This year was no exception. Emilie’s appears inspired by Edvard Munch’s the Scream. Jack’s is….well I’m not sure about Jack’s. We even did check to see if he meant to leave the lower half of his pumpkin blank, and yes it was intentional. It was also intentional to have the eyes offset. Never question the work of a master.

On a small side note, and I mean small, after finishing her pumpkin. Emilie brought out a very small gourd and insisted it be carved for Peppa, the Guinea Pig. Every family member gets a pumpkin right?

 

Above: LtoR; The Great Pumpkin, Peppa’s Pumpkin, Emilie’s Pumpkin

Adults don’t get left out either. After helping Em with her gourd and carving one for the pig, Kevin opted to go with the “DeWalt” method and used the drill on his pumpkin. I took a little more of the Collegiate route and with with the Coug logo. All in all we got a pretty good look bunch of squash on the front porch.

Above: LtoR; Jack’s Pumpkin, Kevin’s Pumpkin, Cassie’s Pumpkin (in chair)

Finally we did do a little pumpkin experiment and made a bear pumpkin this year. Back in the spring the kids’ Sunday School teacher gave them an empty animal cracker container. She suggested putting one of our pumpkins in it and seeing if it would grow into a bear shape (I guess shaped fruit growing is popular in Asia). We thought it would be a fun experiment and it turned out fairly well. If we can find some other containers we will try it again next year. The hardest part was getting the plastic off without damaging the pumpkin.