Carved Pumpkins

I love Halloween! Every year, our house is full of pumpkins and fall leaves and cider & donuts and freshness of fall. I love watching the kids dress up in costumes and take on a different persona, if only for a day. It's fun to watch their personalities become the character they are dressed up as.

And pumpkin carving! Oh the mess, but oh the joy of watching something develop and be created on the round orange canvas. Usually the oldest two work together, the middle 2 create theirs and hubby helps with youngest, but this year I decided to let each kid try to carve their own. Jacob had gone to a pumpkin patch with his class a few weeks ago and we had hunted out the perfect little carving pumpkin for a 5 year old.

The stage was set.  The pumpkins laid out on the table and the search for designs ensued. My oldest son (age 14) is in marching band at school and we decided to try to create his band mascot on his pumpkin.My oldest daughter (age 11) is an avid animal lover so she chose a puppy dog to put on hers. The 10 year old loves MSU so a Spartan was her choice; the 8 year old loves skulls and skeletons so a skull face won and the youngest, well he just wanted a somewhat scary face.

The kids got right to work. Even Jacob jumped right in and got his hands dirty. Of course, hubby couldn't just help without adding to the mess. Oh no....instead, he decided to take the opportunity to teach the kids how to shoot pumpkin seeds at each other. (I'm STILL finding seeds all around the diningroom and livingroom!)

When it was all said and done, we had 5 fabulous pumpkins, and one that said "MOM".  Yep, that was about all the creativity I could muster at the time. The pumpkins now sit on the front porch, in the cold, rainy Michigan weather, awaiting Halloween and the guests who will come buy to see them.