• Mood: accomplished
• Music: Fine Young Cannibals—Good Thing

MARVELOUS CARVERS

How many more years will I get to enjoy this part of Halloween WITH my kids? Martin is nearly 14, Karin 12...time flies so fast and when I look back at all the years of jack o'lanterns I can't help but hope there are still a lot more in our future. This was the first time that I handed everything to the kids: spoons, knives, bags, ideas and let them have at it. I helped out with the hard parts and stuck knives and tiny teeth cuts here and there but mostly they did it all from start to finish.

Karin always wants to do really elaborate, fiddly designs, but since pumpkin-carving kit tools always break on the über-thick-skinned Swedish pumpkins, we always just end up using the ancient steak knives that have been in my family for a thousand years. But using them means keeping it simple: 3 or 4 teeth, a preference for triangles, funny faces instead of complicated Halloweenie artworks.








Who gave that guy a knife??


The little ghost above Karin's pumpkin was made by one of the kids from a bit of fabric and half a toilet paper roll when they were in lower elementary. There are 2 of them; they've held up surprisingly well.




Karin's pumpkin is starting to rot a bit, and the handle came off when she picked it up to bring it in for carving, so he's got a big hole in his head. I suck at figuring out how to turn the flash off and take non-blurry glowy photos.