Pumpkin Carving Day

This morning dawned muggy, misty and somewhat rainy, and since we've had 2 more kids down with fever/sniffles for the last 2 days, we decided to find a fun, indoor activity to occupy us today. So we sent Paul off to the farmer's market bright and early in search of good carving pumpkins (and cooking pumpkins, butternut squash and cider). The kids were anxiously waiting on the porch for him to return.

He didn't disappoint and returned with several lovely pumpkins for us to carve.

The kids set about seriously drawing various faces to help them figure out what they wanted to carve on the pumpkins.

Then the pumpkin gutting began!

Even Finn was a big helper.

All of the older kids carved their own pumpkins. This is the first year we've let them handle the carving knives and saws on their own.

We munched on roasted pumpkin seeds while we carved, of course.

When the pumpkins were all carved, we lined them up on the back deck to admire them...

And eagerly anticipated nightfall so we could enjoy them in full glory.

Ooh, what scary, glowing faces!