One of the things I discovered about living in the city is that if you don’t have outdoor space, you carve your pumpkin as close to Halloween as you can.  There have been years that I never had a chance to get it done.  In 2012 the stars have aligned and today we carve a Jack-O-Lantern.

I open the pumpkin and scoop the guts out by myself.  Meanwhile the kids are busy drawing faces that we can use to design our Jack-O-Lantern

This is Our Pumpkin

So I start by laying out some newspaper and then I go to work with my knife.

Wish I had a Bigger Knife

The Top is Off

I always forget how messy this is.

Wow, I Haven’t This Much Fun Since the Last Pumpkin

Looks Like It’s About Time to Review Our Designs

So this is where we look at the kids Jack-O-Lantern faces and pick features from them.

They Look Good But I Think We Need Different Eyes

I drew some new eyes for the kids to check out.  They loved them.

Eyes by Daddy

We selected a nose by the 5 year old and the mouth by the 7 year old.

Eyes and Nose are Done

The Mouth is Cut Out, Lets Put it Back in

So we scoop some more pumpkin guts out and find the candle to check out our creation.

We Think it Came Out Awesome

I just have to help the kids decorate their pillow cases for tomorrow and find my black wig and we will be ready.