Carving Pumpkins

So, last year after Halloween, I was at The Walmarts looking through the Halloween clearance section. For 50 cents, I bought one of those books with all the special pumpkin carving tools and the very detailed patterns that turn a fun night of pumpkin carving in to a highly complicated, 5 to 10 hour project. C-1 picked out a pattern of a skeleton that had about 153 very small teeth. The Guy spent quite some time cutting the teeth out of the pattern with an exacto knife so C-1 could transfer it to his pumpkin. Despite The Guys best efforts at negative reinforcement, C-1 did a great job with his carving and his pumpkin looked fabulous. C-2 found a pattern for a pirate ship complete with a teeny tiny skull and cross-bones. I spent 20 minutes cutting all the small details out of the pattern with the knife, then C-2 patiently watched as I, not C-2, carved his pumpkin for him. I must say, C-2's pumpkin looked great when I finished and C-2 was very excited with it, and invited everyone in the house to look at it, over and over again. The Guy helped S carve a cute and simple pumpkin with a regular ol' face on it. Then after the kids went to bed, The Guy carved a "Jack" o lantern for baby J. (He carved J's name in to a pumpkin).
In years past, we usually finish carving about 5 minutes before trick or treaters arrive on Halloween night, but we were really on the ball this year and did our carving the night before. I guess that is why The Guy didn't take his usual 200 photos of the pumpkins sitting on the front porch. I must admit, however, that I am disappointed that we didn't get any pictures of them this year.
The boys all had fun carving and they all even stuck their hands in their pumpkins to scrape out all the guts. That was a first so we are just so proud. Oh, how I miss the days of triangle eyes, round nose, and a big, smiley mouth with hillbilly teeth.