Pumpkin Carving Festivities

Halloween has become a favorite holiday in our house.  We start celebrating in early October with trips to pumpkin patches and apple orchards and continue on to decorating as the big day approaches.  We attended a party at dance, a party at school, a party at the community center, and got dressed up to scare the kids when they came to the house.

To help us celebrate, Grandma came over to help carve pumpkins.

I didn't realize my flash wasn't on so the early pictures are really dark.

I think this was the first year Heidi actually put her hand in the pumpkin without getting completely grossed out.  She still let Grandma and the rest of the adults do most of the gutting.

She was much more into the carving!  This was the first year she was strong enough to wield that little safety knife.

And man, did she enjoy it! 

The finished product.  The one on the left is Shawn's.  Grandma and Heidi made the middle two, Heidi was the designer.  And mine is the one on the far right.  I was please with how it turned out but I didn't know how to make the nose, so Heidi did that part!

I read in some random magazine, probably Rachel Ray, that if you put Cinnamon on the wounds the pumpkin will last longer.  We tried that on a few but I don't think it really worked.  But they did smell good when we lit them!