Fall Bucket List: Carve a Pumpkin

Dave and I have never carved pumpkins together, so when I was asking for suggestions for my Fall Bucket List, he reminded me that we found a pumpkin carving kit a few months back at Diversity Thrift for a dollar! All signs pointed to us needing to carve some pumpkins this year :)

We picked up a few pumpkins a couple weeks ago for an arrangement for the front porch, but we went back to West End Plants and Produce to pick up some more for carving - 2 big ones and 2 small ones. Yesterday we got to work on our pumpkins :)

Dave was much more creative than me as far as carving - I'm not an artist, so I can't look at a big round pumpkin and see an evil face or jack-o-lantern. If I had a template I could trace a design, but I can't just pull it out, you know? So my pumpkins are more simple and methodical, and Dave's are more traditional Halloween pumpkins...

Here's my K:

One year at my townhouse in Fredericksburg, I wasn't going to be home on Halloween and didn't want to get egged for not giving out candy, so I drilled holes in a pumpkin and stuff Tootsie Roll pops in the holes. I added a sign that said "Please Take One" (I'm sure the kids ignored the signs)...so I decided to do that again, only without the lollipops. I thought it would look really cool lit up at night!

Dave carved this evil guy, which we filled with orange twinkle lights:

He also made a vampire and another small carved pumpkin - see what I mean about the creativity? It's unreal!

Here's the whole pumpkin family:

And all lit up on the rotten porch:

My drilly pumpkin needs bigger holes I guess - you can barely see the light through it!

I think we have a new family tradition! So fun!