Our Family Tradition: Pumpkin Carving Time!
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It is October and for our family that means ALL sorts of fun things!!! I just LOVE this month when everyone goes pumpkin crazy! I grew about 15 pumpkins in my garden this year but they were not as big as I was hoping so last week we all went in town when the pumpkins were clearancing out and bought the biggest ones we could find for $3 each! (We only bought 3 because my husband helps my youngest with his….he’s not as big of a pumpkin freak as I am!)
Over the years we’ve collected quite a few pumpkin carving books and sets since we buy them on clearance after Halloween and because the carving utensils are so cheap we always need more. I have been known to spend 6 hours carving pumpkins so as you can imagine I need some pretty sturdy carving equipment! I decided to try out Sweet Creations Pumpkin Carving Kit because not only did the tools look MUCH sturdier than what I would typically buy but it also had a 100% satisfaction guarantee on it – you can’t get much better than that!
I chose the owl since my 4 year old took the bat that I wanted – gotta let the kiddos pick first huh?
Here’s a tip for letting your preschoolers try to carve their own pumpkins – have a parent poke the outline of the carving and then draw on it with a Sharpie marker so the preschooler knows exactly where to cut. Also, never let them carve pumpkins with a knife or carve them without adult supervision. We let our son try his with the small pumpkin carving tools in the kit…..he got about one piece done and quickly was too tired to go much further! Pumpkin carving can be tiring for kids!
My 6 year old, however, had chosen to carve “Dr. Frank” into his pumpkin and he was absolutely determined to carve it all by himself this year. Aside from some minor help from daddy to poke out the tricky teeth he did a phenomenal job! I was pretty impressed!
Overall I LOVED these tools that I used from Sweet Creations. I did not have any pieces bend like I normally do, although I did completely snap one piece in half…not sure how I did that! The tools are much larger than ones I normally use which I really appreciated so my hands didn’t cramp as bad, and the tools are much more durable (aside from the one I broke!). I am pretty good at mutilating pumpkin carving tools every year but the ones I used from Sweet Creations I would definitely purchase if I needed more – they are much better than what I usually use!
We host a Halloween party at my moms house and everyone brings their own pumpkins, we have lots of different decorating ideas for each child. We have everything from stickers, glitter to carving stencils. There can be up to 50 kids it’s a blast and they all look forward to it each year!!!
We go to the pumpkin patch, carve or paint pumpkins and decorate Halloween cookies! Then for Halloween dress up and trick or treat!
We go to the pumpkin patch we carve our pumpkins we love to get dressed up and go trick-or-treating and the can’t forget making lots of cookies and drinking homemade apple cider
We go to the pumpkin patch, carve pumpkins and make caramel apples!
Pumpkin patch and carving pumpkins are our family traditions!
Our family tradition has been to go to the pumpkin farm and pick out our pumpkins. We drink a lot of cider, bake lots of pumpkin treats like pumpkin roll and pumpkin bread. We decorate the house and yard and wait impatiently for the big day. Dressing up in costumes to go trick or treating is fun for young and older alike!
We go to the orchard to pick out pumpkins and apples. We carve the pumpkins and make apple pie. On Halloween night, I make chili before the trick or treaters come. We also buy a costume for our dog each year; she’s going to be a shark this year.
Just hosted our 2nd pumpkin carving party on Saturday. 15 pumpkins carved here! This year we added in some cheap prizes to add some more fun. It was a great night!