It's a tradition in our house to carve pumpkins with my husband's parents and sister and her hubby. We live in the south and the weather is unpredictable in temperature this time of year (usually it's still pretty warm outside) so we are limited to carving our pumpkins no more than a few days before Halloween or they will rot. And if you've ever dealt with a rotten pumpkin then you know it is NOT fun...yuck! We also don't buy fancy carving kits or tools. We use a black sharpie, an ice cream scoop, and a sharp knife.
So here are the Road Runner Girl Steps to Carving a Pumpkin!
- Draw a rough draft of your design. This year the boys got to draw their own design. In the year's past my hubby would do it. But the boys are getting old enough and were so excited to design their own pumpkin carving design!
Hayden's Design
Sawyer's Design (drawn by Hayden...he just told him what he wanted)
- Draw the design on your pumpkin. Andy drew Hayden's design on his pumpkin and Aunt Katie (Andy's sister) drew Sawyer's design.
- Cut off the top...dig out the mush and seeds. Yes this is the grossest part to me. But my boys love it!
- Scoop out as much of the rind as you can for pumpkin pies! A lot of people don't do this part. They just get the guts out of the pumpkin and leave all the pumpkin goodness! We love pumpkin pie around here so none of our pumpkin insides get wasted! ;-)
- Carve...finally!!! As our boys are too young to handle sharp knives we do this part ourselves. ;-)
- Take pictures of the final product! This is probably the most important step! ;-)
So our pumpkins are definitely unique this year! The boys are super proud to see their designs on them! And that's what it's all about...getting the boys involved and having a good time! Mission accomplished!
QOTD: Do you carve pumpkins? Any steps you include that I left out?
