Pumpkin fun.

We had a great time today enjoying the awesome art of Jack-O-Lantern design. Sam brought a pumpkin home from school a couple of weeks ago that his teacher had grown in her garden, and he was dying to carve it. I was surprised by his emerging independence when it came to wielding the fancy, serrated carving tool and designing his own image. After I cut the top open and took out the guts, he did the rest completely by himself, and it turned out great!Then when Chris got home from work we decided to do the rest of our pumpkins, and each of the kids did well on their own, at least with the carving part. For some reason none of them wanted anything to do with scooping out the slimy stuff, which seems like something kids would enjoy. So Chris and I got stuck with that part, then let the kids go to it with their creativity in gear. Noah and Sophie used a pattern, while Chris helped Nicolas, and Sam decided to create his own personal design.

Here are the kids' final products:

After the kids went to bed, Chris and I worked on ours. After several goofy looking drafts of my moose, I think my final product turned out cool. Chris went for something a little more spooky and "Halloweeny", as he put it. I just love this time of year!And our final products (not the best picture, but you get the idea):