Overachieving Pumpkin Carvers

Sitting around our kitchen table late into the October night, carving our carefully picked pumpkins, Hubster and I started wondering how we got to this point.  How did we become a family of super competitive, overachieving pumpkin carvers?

We think it began with Hubster's brother, about a year after Hubster and I got married. Hubster's brother, Roo, had bought a carving kit and carved a bat or a wolf or something other than a traditional grinning jack-o-lantern.  And Hubster and I, being the naturally competitive people we are, were like, "Challenge accepted."

And we've been doing it every year since.

This year, our porch will be decked in four pumpkins.

We have a more traditional jack-o-lantern from Monkey, drawn and traced and in part cut out by him.

We have Bug's first solo attempt at a shaded pattern (which means he picked out the pattern he thought was the coolest - Harry Potter - and then transferred the pattern onto the pumpkin, instantly became overwhelmed by the detail, and left Hubster to finish it.)

We have my Wicked Witch of the West.

And we have Hubster's Joker.

Witches, and wizards, and villains, oh my. 

There are times, when we are still cutting and shading and putting the final details on the pumpkins in the middle of the night, that we think we might be taking this whole pumpkin carving a little too far. That maybe we should lighten up, carve a couple of triangle eyes and a toothy grin and call it good. But then we light the candle, turn off the lights, and step back. Every time, the result is amazing and we know that next year, we'll be doing again.

(See previous year's pumpkins here: 2005-2006, 2008 (probably my favorite ones), 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012)