I had this idea that I was going to do one more grand Halloween post and be done with it. But then I started thinking about all that said post would entail, and it sounded really….long.

So today you get the last of the pumpkins–specifically our trip to the pumpkin patch plus the big pumpkin carving–and then this weekend I’ll do an actual Halloween recap complete with costume reveals.

I don’t think we’ve done an all out pumpkin patch visit for a few years…we’ve just done the swing by the grocery store and grab a pumpkin route. But this year we have a baby! And it’s the law that when you have a baby, and it’s October, you have to take pictures of your baby with pumpkins. And it’s too hard to get pictures without shopping carts in the background at the grocery store.

We kept planning to go somewhere with a hayride and maybe farm animals to pet and all that. But then we kept running out of time and finally decided to go to the close by, easy pumpkin patch like place and save hayrides for next year, when Abe might actually enjoy one. Fortunately, he did enjoy sitting next to pumpkins. And the older kids, who, like Abe, don’t care much whether or not they go on a hayride, were similarly cooperative:

And here’s Dave with the selected pumpkin:

Dave’s become quite the expert pumpkin carver over the past couple of years. I was confident there was nothing he and his $3 set of plastic pumpkin carving tools couldn’t do, so I unilaterally decided on an Edgar Allan Poe pumpkin to go with our Raven Halloween extravaganza. Well, I mean, me and the kids did. But not Dave. He didn’t get a vote, because he got to CARVE the pumpkin, and that’s enough fun for him. Plus he might have said “no, that’s too hard.”

I paid $2 for the right to print two pumpkin patterns from Zombie Pumpkins. We have 9 months to use the other one, which means the pressure’s on to pick next year’s Halloween theme by July or so. Someone remind me, please.

No complaints whatsoever with Zombie Pumpkins….the pattern printed out perfectly and it was easy to use.

Here’s our pattern:

Here are the kids helping transfer it onto the pumpkin:

“I wish Edgar Allan Poe didn’t have such messy hair,” Dave said.

When we first put it outside, we were a little worried….it doesn’t look so impressive in the daylight (or, you know, so much like Edgar Allan Poe):

But then it got dark, and things got pretty FABULOUS:

You’re probably expecting all the kids to be dressed as ravens for Halloween. But they won’t be. That would have been really tricky, I think.