Pumpkin Carving: A History

Adam with his creative talents introduced me to the art of fancy pumpkin carving.  When we had been dating for about 6 weeks (October 2006), we were planning to go to his Mom's house and carve pumpkins one night, but I got really sick and had to stay home.  At the end of the night, he came by to show me the jack o'lantern he'd made, which was a screaming face with its hands up at the sides of the face...think The Scream meets Kevin from Home Alone.  He had made individual strands of hair by scraping deep lines into the pumpkin shell, creating a glowing effect from the candlelight inside.  I was totally impressed, having grown up with traditional triangle-eyed jacks. 

Since then we've made it a tradition to put in the extra effort for cool carvings.  Here are the last 5 years of pumpkins: (Note how the subject matter has changed since we had kids)

2008: Haunted House and Skeleton losing his head

2009: Evil Sorcerer and Witch on Broomstick

2010: Witch at cauldron (the other two were our friends')

2011: Bigmouth and Snoopy Flying Ace

2012: Cheshire Cat and Zombie Hello Kitty

Holly was thrilled to be "the big helper" as she calls herself as we carved pumpkins this year.