Why Carving Pumpkins is Just About the Worst Thing in the World

Our backyard tree changing colors. :)

I had a plan.  I wanted to paint pumpkins this year.  I had some cool ideas, but the thought of painting pumpkins was horrendous to Scott.  You carve pumpkins, you don't paint them.  Ok, fine.  We will carve them.  And I have to say that I can't remember the last time I carved a pumpkin.  Maybe two other times in my life?   And after this experience, I know I haven't missed out on anything.

If someone would have told us, don't buy three large pumpkins and those awesome Sesame Street character carvings for them cause it isn't going to turn out well for you, I would have listened to them.  And kissed them on the mouth.  Because random people who predict things are always correct and never creepy.

It all started at Target where we found some large punkins and cute carvings and we were so excited.  Cause it was Nolan's first year of being able to interact with the situation and we thought he would just love them.  And he loves Elmo, so this was just going to be some special memories for all.  Just the best moments ever.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

It took us awhile to actually do anything with the pumpkins so they sat in our entryway for over a week.  We returned home from eating dinner last Friday night and our house smelled like dead fish.  DEAD FISH.  We attributed the leftovers we brought home to this smell, went to bed and woke up to the smell again of DEAD FISH.  Why are there dead fish in every room of our house?  It was concerning.  We were getting ready to leave for our family pictures when I looked in our entryway to only describe a scene of pumpkin horror (cue Psycho shower scene audio).  There was about a 3ft. (in length) pool of orange liquid in our entryway and I asked Scott, uhhh did something spill over here?  Only to see that it was coming out of one of the pumpkins.  Scott immediately picked that (not carved) pumpkin up and it immediately fell apart.  He got it together and threw it out and cleaned up the nasty on the floor before Nolan could take advantage of this new-fangled fall swimming pool.  We learned our lesson and put the remaining two pumpkins outside for them to do their business. We sprayed some Febreeze and came back to our house after pictures and the smell was almost gone.  Thank goodness.  And Then There Were Two.

We finally decided to carve the pumpkins this past Sunday night, and I wanted to do it outside to create less of a mess inside but we were losing daylight as the Raiders game was coming to an end.  We went out and I immediately got one of the tops and guts carved out.  Our little carving tool broke halfway cutting the top off. Awesome.  So we had to get a knife.  Even us watching it and Nolan like hawks, Nolan still managed to grab it twice.  Sneaky little guy.  After our hearts started beating again and the wind picked up, we decided to move the operation inside where it would be a bit safer having to place to put all these dangerous tools and Scott got to work on the first carving of Big Bird.  It didn't go well.  We tried tracing it with a dark marker but still couldn't do it especially without our carving tool.  I suggested PAINTING THE FREAKING THING.  He again resisted, but I insisted.  The only paint that we had on hand was washable but I thought I would at least try it.  It couldn't have been more transparent.  It looked not great.  I said lets just put it out there, but Scott didn't see it fit to sit on our porch.  So in the garbage it went.  What a waste of a diseased looking Big Bird traced pumpkin.  And Then There Was One.

Screw the carving helpers.  Too detailed and and with our janky knifes, just not gonna happen.  Nolan doesn't care anyway, I certainly don't care at this point anymore, so we settled with your typical Jack- O- Lantern.  Scott quickly cut out the pumpkin and it was just beautiful.

I saw somewhere where you can put glow sticks in them so you don't have to use candles and I tried 6 glow sticks and it looked so stupid.  Cause you can see the glow sticks sitting at the bottom and they barely illuminated anything.  Well, we got one pumpkin carved and it looks pretty Halloweeny, so it wasn't a complete failure.  Maybe he will take my advice next year and just paint the pumpkins.  Actually, he will take my advice cause that is what is going to happen for the rest of our lives.  All I have to say is remember the Pumpkin Disaster of 2012 and that Nolan picked up a knife TWICE?  That's what I thought.

Happy Halloween.