Halloween II: The Carving of "Pumpkin Head"

For Family Home Evening this week Tyler, Jamie and I carved up the pumpkin that Tyler picked out from the community garden. We have named it "Pumpkin Head." (More on the name later). Tyler was much more involved this year than he was last year.

At first Tyler was a little bit afraid of the icky stuff inside his pumpkin and was a little unsure of his mom and dad so readily sticking their hands in and pulling out so much orange slime. However, after much coaxing he did eventually put his hand in and play with a little of the gunk inside. The most fun was watching him giggle whenever I would pretend to get ready to eat some of the Goo.

Jamie did the carving because 1) she is the better artist and 2) we trust her with a knife more than Tyler. When it was finally all carved up I thought it looked pretty good. Tyler had directed his mother that he wanted a silly or goofy face and not a scarey face. I think this was accomplished, and as you will see below, the pumpkin's silly face sorta matches up with Tyler's.

Tyler showed "Pumpkin Head" off to everyone he could. We are a little worried about how he will react once Pumpkin Head starts to rot and we have to throw him out. For now, Tyler just likes having a new friend around the house.

Oh yeah, the name Pumpkin Head came from a visit we had to the neighbors yard down the street. Our neighbor, Andrew Munoz, had posted two rather frightening Scarecrow type things in his front yard. One had a skeleton for a face and the other had a Jack O-Lantern for a head. Each had tattered clothes and menacing faces (hard to explain, but they were pretty cool and rather creepy looking). He also had a Guillotine in the yard. Anyway, on a walk one day Tyler was acting rather scared of the figures in the Munoz yard. So I told him there was nothing to be afraid of, it was just "Pumpkin Head" and his silly friend. Tyler responded by saying, "Hey Pumpkin Head." He did it in a very cute way and from then on whenever we saw Jack O-Lanterns of any type I would have him repeat, "Hey Pumpkin Head." Probably one of those stories that is more fun to experience than to read about in a blog. Oh well, at least I'm trying right?