A Very Tim Burton-ey Halloween, 2011 Edition

We invited Megs and her fam to come over to our house and carve up the punkins we got at the Scoresby Farms stand together. It was big fun.

Gutting, gutting, gutting (the worst part):

I love Micah's little double chin that he gets when he looks down. Why can't double chins be as cute when you're 34?:

Sadie, as per usual, drew an extremely complicated, very Tim Burton-esque drawing for her parents to try to figure out how to carve:

Dylie, carving a pumpkin of his own design:

Gage, being beautiful and babyish, as usual:

Oh that Ben of mine. The man actually went and bought some of those vampire teeth that you, like, mold to your teeth. And they stay on really well. He was so excited about them that he modeled them for Mark and Megan:

He also wore them on Halloween to work all day. For reals. When he went to Fiesta Ole Halloween night to grab some dinner for us, the lady that helped him at the drive-through window also had some of those teeth on! He pointed to her teeth and went, "Heyyyy!" And she pointed to his teeth and went, "Heyyyy!" So they had a little bonding moment together.

Ben looooooooooooves Halloween. He keeps saying how he hopes he'll be back from China in time for it this year. Boy, I hope so, too.

Ben took a long look at Sadie's design and immediately gave it to me to figure out:

And, boy, it was a stumper. It was just really hard to figure out what should be the carved stuff and what should be the untouched pumpkin...

Still just at a total loss...

I finally finished - you'll see the finished product in a minute. But it took forrrrrevvvver.

The kids played while we carved:

And the babies did cute babyish things:

I love this one that Ben carved - the pumpkin he chose really looked a lot like a skull, so he went with that theme:

Here is Dylan's finished carving:

This was as far as I had gotten on Sadie's when Mark and Megs went home:

Ben picked out this enormous pumpkin and was regretting it when it came time to gut. I think it was Mark who suggested leaving the insides all pulpy and gross and making some kind of monster whose mouth was at the top of the pumpkin as it lay down:

Here they are, properly lit. And may I just say that I found some little fake tea lights at Porter's to use in our pumpkins this year, and I am SOLD on those things. Usually, the wind blows the real tea lights out. These lasted all the nights I lit the pumpkins. I'm a fan.

Dylan's on the left and Sadie's on the right:

Ben's pulpy monster on the left and my carving on the right (which I did after I finished Sadie's beastmaster of a pumpkin):

A generic one Ben carved on the left, and his skeleton on the right:

He really is such a good artist. And here they are, all together:

I can't figure out what that green light is above the monster one. I think that's where our outdoor power plug is. Why it's glowing green in these pics, who knows? Maybe it's a ghosty. Ooooh, it reminds me of Watcher in the Woods. You know, with that creepy light in the woods??? Eeeeeeeeeee!! I totally just got goosebumps thinking about it. That is the scariest show EVER MADE!!!!