Pumpkin guts galore

I've handled more pumpkin guts in the past few days than I'd ever imagined. OK, it's not really *that* many pumpkin guts. Maybe it's only four pumpkins that I had my hands inside, scooping out the innards and scraping the flesh clean.

When you go to two pumpkin carving parties, your hands are bound to get dirty.

Sunday night, in what threatens to be an annual tradition, we had the neighbor girls over to carve pumpkins. We hit four different stores in our quests for the perfect pumpkins. I fell in love with this horribly scarred and pimpled one, while my husband searched high and low for the perfect big and small pumpkin duo.

Here's the end result, all lit up and lined up. Mine is in the middle. (For a good picture of mine alone, click here.)



And here's a close up of my husband's pumpkin, which is actually two pumpkins screwed together in a "must eat brains" fashion, and a close-up of Linnae's pumpkin, which is also two pumpkins screwed together in a "must suck brains" fashion.



Then Tuesday at work, the social committee threw a pumpkin carving party. At first I told myself I was just going to play photographer, but then I found myself getting into the act.

In the end we carved and decorated 18 pumpkins. Some were carved free-hand, some were carved using templates, and some were decorated using Mr. Potato Head-type plastic parts.





I used a Jack Skellington template to make my own Nightmare Before Christmas pumpkin. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

P.S. I promise this is the last of the pumpkin carving posts. Unless I get some good photos of the pumpkin decay cycle or something. OK, sorry, I just can't promise. Maybe there will be more pumpkin posts and maybe there won't. I don't know. I really like pumpkins. :P