Pumpkin carving

According to Martha's calender in the October issue of Martha Stewart Living, she doesn't carve her pumpkin until October 30.  I simply can't hold off that long. 

Here's my pumpkin. It's huge. So huge that I made the Big Guy carry it into the house for carving, and back out again for display.  For many years now, I've used the Pumpkin Masters carving kits.  I buy them after each Halloween when they go on clearance, and they've never steered me wrong.

Here's the inside of my pumpkin.  Doesn't it look like there's a face in there?  Spooky!

Scooping out the goop.  In years past, I would alternate between thinking this was fun and really, really gross.  Now, after having one child and with another on the way, I'd say that dealing with substances of this sort (gross and abundant) is a daily occurrance.  How's that for scary?

If you're familiar with the Pumpkin Masters series, then you know how it works:  tape the design to the pumpkin, punch little holes in the outline, carve out the pieces according to the outline, and TA-DA! You're done!  It helps to make the punch holes fairly close together, so you can play connect-the-dots for carving.

Almost done....

And here's my finished product.  Isn't it creepy?

Halloween is almost here...I'm so excited!