Happy Halloween!

This one wasn't by either of us, fyi :P

So, if you haven't been following me on Google Plus, this month (and why haven't you??) you didn't see my month long tribute to the fun and spookiness of Halloween. I featured a lot about the old Universal Monster movies, some neat craft ideas, and....well....lots about old Universal Monster movies.

Ahem.

O.k, so you really didn't miss all that much, but I also revealed the results of our Sometimes Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest. We missed last year, hence the "sometimes annual".

Anyway, what we do is get a bunch of snacks, pop in some Halloween themed movies and go about carving pumpkins. Since it's just the two of us, the "contest" portion of the night really isn't all that "contesty"...but it's still loads of fun.

We did two, separate, sets of pumpkins as the first started to rot after only a couple of days. I had read where, if you smear Vaseline inside as well as in the cut out holes, the pumpkin will last longer and, now, I can confirm that. After about a week, the second set of pumpkins we carved still look brand new.

On the first Carving Night we loaded up on all kinds of stuff that's not good for us, like egg rolls, mini pizzas, mozzarella sticks, and pie....pumpkin, naturally. We each picked two movies...my wife went with Halloween Town 1 and 2 and I chose The Wolfman and Mad Monster Party.

A before shot.

Another 'before'

Our "supervisor"... Spooky

The (tasty) innards

Tracing the pattern

S.H.I.E.L.D..of course I'd do something comic booky

My wife tried a shaving technique to make a smiling face/graveyard

The finished products.

As I mentioned above, due to the fact that the pumpkins started to dry up and rot a couple of days later...and my wife wasn't satisfied with her experimental shaving offering....we decided to carve up a couple more unsuspecting pumpkins.

This time we just went "old school"...my wife using our cat, Jasmine, as a model for hers while I just went with some generic creepiness. These didn't turn out half bad, I have to say.

For the movies, this time, I picked Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein (which my wife had never seen...but loved...) and my wife chose Hocus Pocus.

These pumpkins were much smaller (by design) and it didn't take us nearly as long to carve them up (again, by design).

While I'm sure neither of us will ever make the National Pumpkin Carving Tour (is there such a thing?), we had a ton of fun and, after all, isn't that what Halloween is all about?

Here's wishing you all a very safe and happy Halloween and watch out for all the little creatures if you happen to be driving tonight!