Annual Family Pumpkin Carving

We have made it a family tradition to carve pumpkins every fall. This year autumn came and went and due to my work schedule and the short season caused by a spring frost we never got a chance to go apple picking. It was earlier this week I realized that we never purchased any mums for the front flower pots or pumpkins which we normally carve and then roast the seeds for a yummy snack. I can honestly say I was bummed and when the kids both brought it up I was considering buying a pumpkin from the grocery store even though it would be expensive just to keep the tradition going. 

Thankfully I didn't have to get a store bought pumpkin, on my way home from work I was driving by a local farm stand which had closed for the season and they had placed a large wooden crate full of their left over pumpkins from the season out by the road with a great big sign saying they were free for the taking! There were multiple vehicles that pulled in full of children excited to pick a pumpkin of their own so I decided not to be greedy and only took four one for each member of our family.

Ariel decided to carve an owl into her pumpkin. And took a moment out of her teenage telephone conversation to pose for picture with her creation!

Alex decided he wanted to carve a Medieval Knight into his pumpkin.

I decided to carve a majestic buck into my pumpkin - in hopes of Ariel getting a real one this weekend!

Rebecca was busy with work so we decided to carve hers into a Fleur-de-Lis

Here they are all together and they made for a great candle lite dinner!

I'm very thankful for the farmer who decided to give away the left over pumpkins not only did we enjoy time together with our family pumpkin carving night we also have a big bag of roasted pumpkin seeds to snack on the next several days and once the pumpkins start to get soft they will make the chickens very happy and will mean extra dark orange yolks which will be great for making eggnog!