carving pumpkins

Wednesday, I took the boys out to my mom's and we carved pumpkins! It was a fun time. The boys created their own designs and did their own carving. I decided to try one of the patterns in the little book we got with the tools. OK, I have to say, especially if you are a mom with really small children and have many years of pumpkin carving ahead, see if you can find hard core, really well made carving tools. The little kits you buy cheap? Well, they work but you'll have all the tools broken by the time you finish one pumpkin! I've not done much pumpkin carving in my life. In fact, the first I remember doing was when Sam was just over a year, I carved the Jack-O-Lantern smile to match Sam's newly grown in teeth! Anyway, this year, I bought big pumpkins not realizing that you then get thick pumpkins. They were harder to carve because of their thickness. Sam chose the smaller pumpkin I'd purchased for myself because he liked the shape. It was a bit hard to get good pictures of these lit. I need help with nighttime photography! So, here ya' go...Mine is the owl. Kinda hard to make out.

Max's is the evil grinning Jack-O-Lantern, which I love.. the eyebrows are the magical touch!
Sam wrote out and carved a Halo 3 pumpkin, one of his favorite computer game logos. Unfortunately, we are finding that the "3" part is going limp already so we're having to use toothpicks to prop it up. I think maybe it should have been carved larger and thicker.

My mom found the most gorgeous area rug and purchased it for my living room as a birthday gift! It looks so amazing on my floor! Haven't taken a picture yet though.

Well, must get boys up for school shortly so I need to dress for my morning walk and go pack lunches. I'll get back to vacation posts and wrap that up soon. Right now, I'm buried in the throws of helping Sam make his ipod touch Halloween costume!