Pumpkin Carving

I have never been overly creative.  This year was the third time I carved a pumpkin.  I have not used a template or a design for it, but I have started with a cookie cutter and worked from that shape twice.  I tend to like simple designs that will look neat lit up.  Sunday evening we had a pumpkin carving fall party.  It was a great time of fun and fellowship.  

The youth from church were there as well as a number of the regular pizza group.  There were twelve pumpkins carved.  A number of them had super hero themes - most of which were actually carved by the girls, which the girls found ironic.  There were only two faces carved in the somewhat traditional manner.  It was neat to see a whole line of carved pumpkins lit up in lawn.  The time change helped because it got dark an hour earlier.

Last year's pumpkin: carved with the my good friend Catherine.
It even had the big dipper on the back.

This year's pumpkin: carved independently.
People kept commenting that I did leaves because I am Canadian, they aren't even maple leaves.

An extra one just for fun.
This is Paula's pumpkin, which I thought turned out really neat.

Part of the fun with carving pumpkins was separating some seeds to bake.  At one point I commented about the things we do for friends - I was going through the pumpkin guts separating a couple containers worth of seeds because my friends wanted them.  I really didn't care about the seeds other than the tradition of having seeds was part of pumpkin carving.

There was also lots of good food to go with the evening activities.  We also added in some birthday cake and goodies for Susan's birthday, even though her birthday was almost a month ago.  There was a fire for roasting hot dogs and s'mores; there were chips and a cheesy dip; there were peanuts in their shells as well as candy corn and candy pumpkins; there were cupcakes, spice cookies, pumpkin bread, cake, and birthday cake.  There was even hot apple cider, which is one of my favorites.

The evening was not complete until a board game was played after the pumpkins were finished being carved and the food had been enjoyed.  It was a great evening!