Carved

Let us not delve into the psychological indicators present when a small child creates a story of a family out of a table full of pumpkins and then gleefully demands them to be disemboweled and carved into scary and shocked faces. We will just stick with the happy, safe "being a kid!" theory and enjoy the craftswomanship of these free-handed jack-o-lanterns.

This year's pumpkins are not as fancy as last year's but they were a lot more fun to create. We also got wiser and propped them up on a window sill on the inside so that they simply mock the ravenous squirrels rather than becoming their soggy lunch.

I bought cheesy red, flashing lights to go inside and Lil E was delighted into silence when we went outside and watched them flicker down at us from our second story apartment.

He doesn't think our place is decorated scary enough and for weeks he's been begging me to buy styrofoam tombstones and life-size Frankenstein dolls and inflatable ghosts. That all sifted out when he saw the drawing of the spooky face he wanted, that he thought would scare "even my daddy when he comes to get me," come to life in eerie red light flickering from his white pumpkin.

He asked me to pose with his pumpkin, and to "be really, really scared of it." (Yes, I realize I resemble my pumpkin a little too much.)

Of course, the whole night was capped off with taking a picture of ourselves, silly, slimy and just scary enough for Halloween in our house.

In case you haven't already cooked up and devoured the eleven pumpkin seeds you salvaged from your kids' pumpkins, here's the closest I will ever get to sharing a recipe on this blog: How to make toasted pumpkin seeds in 18 complicated and disgusting steps.