Halloween kind of came and went in a hurry this year BUT we did manage to carve some pumpkins. Josh and I had a couple girls from the youth group over because one of them had NEVER carved a pumpkin.... and that's just not kosher.
It was a beautiful day out so we carved them in our backyard, it was perfect (sorry for the orb in the picture... either our backyard is haunted or I'm really bad a taking pictures... I'm going with the latter).
The girls and I picked out our designs from a 'pumpkin carving kit' but Josh took a different direction and took a trip to crazy town.
Yes... that is a picture of his face. Nuf' said.
I think everyone had a good time. I say 'I think' because Josh was about to have a heart attack the entire time... he kept commenting on how hard his design was, hmmm I wonder why!? Kallie finished her pumpkin in about .2 seconds... let's just say that sitting still is not one of her favorite things to do. Her pumpkin look pretty good though! It took Jazmin about 2 hours to finish her pumpkin, she was the one that had never carved a pumpkin.... she wanted to make sure it was perfect :) I managed to carve two pumpkins, mine were EASY as pie!
Finished project! Jazmin's is the skeleton, mine are the middle two (the witch stirring a pot, which I think it looks like a witch playing a guitar, and the owl), and Kallie's is the bat cat.
And this is Josh's final outcome... not to shabby if I do say so myself. I guess the main problem was that his two front teeth 'fell out' so it looks really weird. But I think it looks like Josh... and little like Santa Claus :)
So, carving the pumpkins were a super success and an all around good day. I spent a good hour after carving cleaning all the seeds and separating them from the goo so I could make one of my favorite things, pumpkin seeds! I tried to find the BEST way to make pumpkin seeds but I'm more of a 'fly by the seat of my pants' kind of girl. AND I've done it before so I will just do what I know. I finally got around to baking the seeds at about 8:00pm. I spread the seeds out on a cookie sheet, coated them in olive oil and salt, and placed them in the oven. I was suppose to bake them for about 40 minutes. Well after I sat down on the couch and started watch my show I didn't remember I had them in the oven till about an hour and a half later... when I smelled them burning. I ran to the oven and took them out immediately... low and behold they didn't look burnt. So I let them cool off and I ate some. I ate a lot. After about my 15th handful (I was literally starving) I decided they tasted like burnt pumpkin seeds (or like crap). Josh only confirmed my fears, he had to spit them out they tasted so bad to him. I burnt about 2 pounds of pumpkin seeds. Epic fail.
Two days later I walked out into the garage (where I mistaken left my pumpkins for two days) to find this......
It melted! Well... both of them actually did. They were so mushy that I couldn't even pick them up. I had to 'scoop' them into a garbage bag and throw them away. I carved two pumpkins, sat them in dark garage (where NOBODY could see how awesome they looked) for two days, and they melted. Epic fail.
Not all was lost. Josh's pumpkin survived for an entire week... and then it melted. I hear it was a bad growing season for pumpkins, that's what I'm blaming it on.
Valuable lessons learned:
Don't eat burnt pumpkin seeds, they really do taste horrible
Don't put pumpkins in dark places... ever!
My husband is incredibly talented and patient
The feel of mushy pumpkin squishy between your fingers is rather disturbing
