Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween my fellow readers.  I woke up this morning with sleepy eyes and a numb thumb and forefinger which makes for interesting typing.  Yesterday was pumpkin carving day at our house.  We love to carve and usually end up buying way too many pumpkins each year.  I thought you'd enjoy our selection for this year.


Having 2 young kiddos, we are big on the Dreamworks/Pixar/Disney deal here.  So a montage of this year's character winners in our house.


Current favorite movie: How to Train Your Dragon.  Toothless is just plain adorable and how could you not like Hiccup.

Next up: Monsters vs. Aliens   It's such a hard choice between the characters because we love them all but B.O.B. is highlarious.  Next year, we may have to do Dr. Cockroach...because his Mwah ha ha cackle is just perfect for Halloween.

But so far, our all time house favorite is Ice Age 3 and the one oft most quoted.  It was the original intention of this carver to do Buck, but he was too many shades of white to work well in Pumpkin Carving...at least for my current set of skills.  So we have our second favorite...Scrat aka Crazy Squirrel.

Next up, my dear daughters' pumpkins.  They got to pick their pattern choice this year and this is what they came up with.


Conversation with my youngest:
Me: So, you're picking a Spooooky Ghost.
Youngest: No Mom, he's a friendly ghost.  See, he's smiling!

Oldest: Not quite sure yet why she picked a skull but it's the one she wanted.  So here it is.

And finally, I was going to attempt another Twilight themed pumpkin this year.  But my plans were thwarted when one of my friends was trying to guess what my How To Train Your Dragon pumpkin was and she guessed, in jest I hope, Jon Bon Jovi.  LOL  Um....No.  So I decided in honor of her to do one JBJ just for her.  Enjoy!!

Hopefully, I'll get some Halloween layouts up soon!!  Be safe tonight and please watch out for the kiddos!!

A New Hobby

I think I may have found a new hobby and fortunately it only lasts a couple weeks out of every year. I carved another pumpkin tonight because it is just too much fun. So here is my ode to all the Team Jacob fans out there in honor of New Moon being released next month.

This pattern also came from the Pumpkin Wizard. I highly recommend them. They have a lot of free patterns in all different categories. They even have...blech...a Team Edward pattern. If you have carved pumpkins this season, I'd LOVE to see them. Just post your link to your blog in my comments section.

A Cut Above

So, we as family, ventured outside of our comfort zone this year and decided to carve pumpkins. Not being a huge fan of typical jack-o-lantern faces, we always painted faces on, in the past. I have to say, it may have been 20 years since I've carved a pumpkin. What got into me this year, who knows. But we had a delightful time last night with the girls making "special" pumpkins.

Each of our girls got to pick what they wanted on their pumpkin. My oldest picked a bat, which was nice, because it was easier for me to draw the picture onto the pumpkin. We had patterns but didn't think of that when buying our pumpkins which were too small for the pattern. The youngest picked the witch, which she really liked....on paper. As soon as Daddy finished carving them both and lighting them up, she no longer liked her witch. Now it was a scary witch. Ha ha. That's okay, we like her witch and think Daddy did a tremendous job carving them out. Now he's hooked on patterns and I think if I let him, he'd go out and buy 3 or 4 more pumpkins.

I wanted to try the layered carving. It seemed like a nice creative challenge. So I searched the web for pumpkin patterns and found The Pumpkin Wizard. It's a great site with lots of free patterns. The family voted and since we are big Madagascar fans here, chose the Penguins for Mommy's pumpkin. 4 hours later....and here is the result. I don't think it was to bad for my first foray into decorative pumpkin carving.

What do you do to your pumpkins for Halloween? Any unusual decorations? Leave a comment and let me know.