Jack-O-Lanterns

Ayden looks so grown up as he cleans out his pumpkin

Ashten wanted to try a bite...obviously he didn't like itIt took me a while to get Ashten to touch the pumpkin guts with his handsAyden concentrated very hard on getting his holes poked in the pumpkin
Ashten marking his pattern
Ayden cutting out his alien's eyes

The boys and their finished pumpkins

Ashten's is a witch holding a pumpkin and Ayden's is an alien head (if it looks funny it's because I didn't use a pattern I just made it up in my head)

This is the first year that the boys were interested in carving pumpkins. After dinner, we got out our pumpkin carving kit and chose out some patterns. They weren't thrilling Ayden so we looked online for some ideas also. We spent some time cleaning the pumpkins out. The kids were a little bit hesitant at first about having to stick their hands inside, but eventually they got into it and got all the seeds out. Ayden decided on an alien head so I drew one on with crayon and he poked little holes on the lines so he could remember where to cut. Meanwhile, I helped Ashten poke holes in his pattern. Ashten's pattern was much more detailed so it took longer and when I looked up Ayden was half way done cutting out his alien head. He did pretty much the whole thing by himself. He did a great job especially for a 4 year old! Ashten was a very good helper taking out all the peices that needed to be removed from his carving. I was kind of dreading the whole carving event but we had a good time and the boys were very excited about their finished projects.