The Contreras Family: It's begining to look a lot like... Halloween!

When I was growing up my family had a lot of traditions for every Holiday. Including Halloween.

Every year we would carve pumpkins a few weeks before. I loved this tradition, even though I usually ended up in tears because my pumpkin turned out looking more like it had been chewed up and spit out by some Halloween creature, whereas my brothers and sisters (at least 7 years older than me) had perfect and delicate patterns carved neatly into them.

Alas, I am determined to pass the tradition on to my offspring. This year I was torn about getting Landon his own pumpkin.(we all know that no matter who's or how many pumpkins it was, Gabe was determined to be the one to carve them) We decided to get one family pumpkin for us all to share.

Somehow in the move I misplaced out pumpkin carving tools. Yes, I am that cheap. I keep them and use them over. So, I was extra cheap this year and tried to use a knife and spoon for carving and scooping out seeds.

Yes, carving tools REALLY are necessary.

But we managed. And we managed to still have fun too!

Of course Landon had no clue of what was going on. He really wanted to try and slobber all over it though :) Is it just me or does my adorable baby bare a slight resemblance??

Gabe loves to dig in dirt and sand, but anything else seems to gross him out. He did help me scrape out the seeds, but he did gag and hold his nose because evidently it stunk... THAT BAD. He is a funny kid, he must have asked my if he could wash his hand 10 times before it was done.

Here is our pattern! Gabe asked if we could carve a zombie in it. Sorry Bud! Mom isn't that good at drawing zombies and she refuses to buy patterns for pumpkins. We used to carve cats, haunted houses, skulls... you name it. But I am going for simple with a 4 yr old and a knife.