PUMPKIN CARVING 101

"Mama, I want a tiger!" says Chago.

"No, no, Mama, I want a bat!" says Saia.

"But Mama was just going to carve a happy face, kids. Can't we just make two smiley faces instead?"

"NOOOOOO!!!!" they both scream at the top of their lungs.

So after they spent 30 minutes spooning the pumpkin seeds out of their respective pumpkins ONE BY ONE...I then spent another hour and a half carving what I happen to think are pretty decent likenesses of a tiger (okay, maybe a cat) and a bat, if I do say so myself.

Although sitting there 2 hours later still trying to oxy pumpkin stains out of my white jeans and pull pumpkin guts out from under my nails, I'm thinking next year we'll just dress them in leather from head to toe, hand 'em a couple of knives, and see what happens.