Who's Idea Was This???

Why do we carve pumpkins again?  Could somebody please remind me?  Cuz it's certainly not for the fun of it.  We don't do this every year, so I guess I forget from year to year, but this whole pumpkin carving thing is for the birds.  Even the kids were like, "why are we doing this mom?"  And I'm like, "I have no idea.  Why don't we just draw the face on it instead and be done with it."  But nooooo, that would not be in the spirit of pumpkin carving and for some reason, Chuck was dead set on carving every last one of them.  He started by cutting the top off each one and then told us to scrape out the inside.  Like it was just no big deal.  Like we scrape gooey, slimy, stringy, wet, puke-inducing stuff out of other stuff all day, every day.  This is so not the type of environment I work well in.  Neither do my kids for that matter - guess they got that one from me.  Poor Chuck had to scrape out all 5 pumpkins.  It was cold out.  But gosh-darnit, we are going to do this thing and we are going to enjoy it, because that's what you do prior to halloween, right?!

Once he finally cleared out all the pumpkins, we were free to be creative and carve our little hearts out - except for its hard to do when your hands are almost frozen stiff and your nose is running like a faucet. But...we were having 'fun'.  Come to think of it, I don't remember ever carving a pumpkin when I was a kid - maybe my parents already on to the lameness of this so-called tradition.  For whatever reason, now we all have our very own pumpkin face that now lights up.  I sure hope it was worth it.  Yay fall/halloween/harvest time.  I can think of many other ways to celebrate rather than having a pumpkin face that glows in the dark on my front porch.

Here is our fun documented in pictorial form:

Chuck removing pumpkin guts

There was lots of huffing and puffing and sighing during the carving process:

 The end result:

 Chloe wasn't very pleased with her craftsmanship.
Later we referred to it as "The Minecraft Pumpkin"

A perfect likeness

Gavin's math pumpkin: Epsilon equals infinity.  He says he's spreading

 mathematical lies but he doesn't care at this point

A no-name pumpkin with sun glasses

 The wonky eyebrow pumpkin

And of course I forgot to buy tea candles to put inside so they glow.  Let's hope I remember to get the candles before the all important night of Halloween when they must shine and show our skill to all trick or treaters!