Halloween Festivities

Well I've mentioned how Sandy kinda put a wrench in our Halloween preparedness, but we soldiered on.  I mean we had to have Halloween.  We had to carve pumpkins, we had to hand out candy, we just had to!  It's funny how you cling to normal and routine and traditions after things go wrong or change drastically.  It's like when I moved out to KS my first year of college.  I was halfway across the country away from the family I'd lived with my whole life.  The only places I felt calm and not stressed for the first few weeks were Target and church.  There was comfort in the familiar and the routine.  So anyway we had to carve pumpkins.  I knew I couldn't do it all by myself when I got home though.  People trick-or-treat early nowadays and I get home around 5pm and I had to have the pumpkins out when it got dark around 6pm and one hour is not enough time to hollow out three pumpkins and carve them.  So we hollowed out the pumpkins the night before and carved one so I only had to carve two when I got home (which gave me a bit of a reprieve since I still hadn't thought up my design yet.  Have I ever mentioned that I procrastinate?  No?  Well I do.)

So this was Tuesday night before we all faced the reality of going back to work the next day.  We set up the pumpkins on the table after having spread newspaper down.  I had one bowl for guts and one for seeds.  And lots of random spoons because I can never remember which one worked the best from the year before.

Then we cut the stems out.  We always cut them in diagonals.  I've seen people just cut around the stem in a circle.  This is weird to me.  I'm sure it works fine but ever since I was too young to carve my pumpkin by myself we've always done diagonals so that is what I will do forever more.

Then we pulled the tops off to get to innards.  Gooey, squishing innards.
 

It's a messy job but someone's got to do it!  And it is messy.  You get messy all the way up to your elbows.  You know, it's a good thing I 1. never became a veterinarian and 2. never grew up on a ranch.  Just saying my definition of "messy" might be a bit different considering where veterinarians and ranchers have to stick their hands . . .
 

Look, Innards!  Guts!  Glory!  Me looking absolutely stunning with no make up . . . HA!  Not.

Haha I find this picture amusing.  It reminds me of those cartoons of miners with their gold tooth glinting in the sun.  Then someone would see the glint, realize the miner's tooth was gold, and subsequently punch him to make the tooth pop out.  After which the puncher would walk away one gold tooth richer.

Ah no gold tooth shine, that's better.
The pumpkin on the left is Medium Well's and the one on the right is mine. 
(Yes I'm starting the whole "don't use actual names on the internet" thing.)
Medium Well was struggling with food poisoning at this point so she couldn't send a pumpkin idea, but Dad made one with a cowboy hat because it's what she would have wanted ;)

This is Small Fry's pumpkin.  Her's was carved later because she was being a booty-head (worse than normal) and didn't give me her design until I had already carved mine and put it outside with Medium Well's.  So I only have a picture of her's by itself.  Anyway, that's a mustache in case you couldn't tell.

Ah I love this picture!  I didn't mean to take it but I snapped it right before Dad shut the lights off.  Anyway, it looks so homey!

Here's the pic with the lights off.  I don't know why Small Fry's pumpkin has a weird glow around it.  I took about ten pictures from all different angles and her's was the only one that had a glowing halo.  Oh well, no biggie.

And here is the table right by the door with the candy bowl all ready to give to trick-or-treaters!  Of which we had a grand total of . . . . seven.  Not kidding.  Only seven.  I was bummed.  What good is having a house if you don't get trick-or-treaters?  All the parents nowadays are taking their kids to the mall to go "trick-or-treating" which is a load of bull.  Seriously.  When I have kids I'm dragging them around the neighborhood.  So watch out future neighbors, you'd better have candy ready for when I take my future kids trick-or-treating!  Or you'll have to answer to me!