Jack-O-Lanterns 2010

The two pumpkins on the right were carved by my parents.
My parents joined us on Friday night to help carve pumpkins. We ended up with 5 from our garden this year - and two of them were tiny and still green, but we carved them anyways. I tried going to a couple of stores earlier in the day on Friday to buy a couple more but couldn't find any stores that had any good ones left to pick from.
Kitty's pumpkin - I drew the bat design and Kitty carved most of it by herself.

Kay's pumpkin - Designed and carved by DH - Kay said she wanted a scary face.

Luke's pumpkin - Luke picked a stencil design that Grandma had and he proceeded to make dots along the lines of the stencil. Then he took off the stencil and tried to follow the dots while he was carving, but the pattern was a little too advanced for him and he made a couple of mistakes. We were able to salvage it at least somewhat so that it at least looked like a skull at the end. He was a little emotional when he realized he made some mistakes but in the end he was pleased with how it turned out.

Blondie's pumpkin - Blondie also chose a stencil design that Grandma had, but this one was very intricate and much too difficult for her to carve. I was busy helping kids and feeding MJ and Blondie was poking the design on her pumpkin before I realized how difficult it was going to be. She did most of the gutting of the pumpkin and then marked most of the design on it, but I ended up having to carve it - and it was not easy in the least! I ended up cutting off a part of the face, but the jack-o-lantern still turned out pretty good. I was amazed at how some of the intricate details really came to life once it was lit up. I kept carving and thinking, I have no idea what this is going to end up looking like in the end. I had a hard time figuring out what parts I was supposed to cut away and what was supposed to be left in the end. It was definitely the hardest design I have ever carved.

M&M's pumpkin - Our biggest pumpkin from the garden would not stand up on its end so M&M and I were bouncing ideas off of each other on how to best carve it. M&M ended up deciding to carve it on its side and then put some pumpkin "guts" hanging out of its mouth (these were both suggestions that I had made). M&M picked out a stencil face and ended up doing all of it herself. We all thought it turned out awesome!