Pumpkin Palooza '10

I am starting to wonder if I am a competitive person? Every year, Zac and I can't just simply sit down and carve a jack-o-lantern. Oh no, it has to be a full blown competition. AND we cannot use store bought or downloaded patterns. The jack-o-lantern has to be out of our own heads and has to have never been created before to the best of our knowledge. I start wracking my brains about Christmas time to come up with next years creation. This is what we came up with this year. Feel free to vote if you would like. The winner gets bragging rights until next Halloween (unless I win, and then there is a monetary prize along with back tickles, and a chore free day while Zac does my chores for me!)

Zac's amazing buck. He is so artistic, can I really compete? He likes to employ the shaving method rather than carving. He borrowed some antlers from my dad.

And here is mine... before you judge me for being lame, first find the humor in my carving "a pumpkin". Secondly, my original idea was a "stained glass pumpkin" I tried to melt both plastic and jolly ranchers in the pieces that I carved out. Both ended in utter failure and turned my pumpkin into a squash by the next day, BUT it's the creativity that counts and I will try my method again in the future until it is perfected.

Our little pumpkin!

Props to Ashlyn for thinking outside the box this year. She decided to do a spider web, which is a huge step in creativity for her as this is the first year she thought of something other than a face. The design is hers and Zac helped her carve it.

Ian's and Tanner's Jack-o-lanterns. Ian's is the top one and I drew 3 different eyes, 3 different noses, and 3 different mouths and then he circled which ones he wanted. Tanner drew his design all by himself and came up with the idea of carving a ghost on one side and a spider web on the other (you can't see them from this angle). I am so proud my kids are starting to be so creative. I can't wait until they can compete with us!