Carving Pumpkins!!

In an attempt to avoid Hurricane Sandy, we abandoned our Outer Banks trip and went to Huntersville, NC to stay with family.  We got there in time to carve pumpkins with the grands.

First, we had to go back out to the corner farmer's market and buy some more pumpkins.  Everyone had to do their own pumpkins.  The kids had fun kits with 'stick in' parts to create Captain America, Elmo and the Angry Bird and Pig from the game.

We also had some stencils to do designs on the other pumpkins.

The cutouts and stick on designs have the added benefit of not requiring you to 'gut' the pumpkin.

I did pick a stencil design that required me to stick my arm into the pumpkin and scrape out the insides. I made a huge mess.  Stuff was flying everywhere.

The hardest part of the whole thing was waiting until dark to see how the pumpkins looked all lit up!  We loaded them with electric votives and set them outside.  Then had dinner and just waited and waited until full dark.

All the pumpkins turned out great.  We had a scary one.  We had the cute ones.  We had ones that were carved but not cut out.  All of them turned out fine.

My DIL even saw pictures of small pumpkins that had vampire teeth inserted making them fun.  We had to do that too.

All the decor turned out great.  We had fun helping do the Halloween decorating.

For being an unplanned side trip, we sure made a lot of memories on our little Huntersville stop.

So, fleeing a hurricane is not necessarily a good time.  But, if you have to change your plans, this is a good way to do it.

Find your family, carve a few pumpkins and enjoy the grands!!

--  Sandee Wagner