Happy Halloween: Pumpkin Edition

(Disclaimer: no one was harmed in the carving of pumpkins. The people in the pictures are professional actors. Okay, so not professional but they were acting.)

Since you've already seen Leah's costume, I will let you know what else we've been doing to celebrate Halloween. Last Saturday, we had a knife party, I mean a carving pumpkin party with Logan's brother and his wife along with another couple from church. Logan made pumpkin pie and also helped me make my favorite fall beverage besides hot chocolate, hot apple wassail. This recipe comes straight from my mom's kitchen where she made it every fall and winter while I was growing up (even if it didn't get all that cold in Texas). Our friends from church brought some dirt and worms from their house for dessert as well (it was actually Oreo cookies and ice cream mixed together with some gummy worms).

Here's the recipe for wassail if any of you are interested in trying it out:

Ingredients: 2 quarts of apple juice or cider, 2 Tablespoons whole cloves, 7-8 whole cinnamon sticks, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 cup of water, 3 oranges or orange juice.

Instructions: Mix sugar and water in a small sauce pan. Dissolve the sugar and boil. Add the cloves and cinnamon sticks. Boil for 7 or 8 mins with lid on. Strain out the cloves and cinnamon sticks (set out to dry and reuse). Put this liquid in a large pan, and add the 2 quarts of apple juice. Add fresh juice from 2 squeezed oranges or add orange juice. Cut the third orange in slices without the peel and add for garnish. Cook until hot and ready.

After we all figured out what we wanted to carve, we set out to work on our pumpkins. The hardest part I had forgotten about was scraping out the insides and trying to get all that spaghetti-like stuff to detach from the pumpkin. My arm got a workout during the process.

And as you can see Logan's pumpkin is a skull with some flames coming off of it, which he thoroughly enjoyed carving. And mine displays a cat with a waning moon. Logan added that he thinks everyone should get Halloween off of work. And I have to show both of Braden and Haley's pumpkins because they were so funny and creative. Braden's is the face (sketched of his own face) and Haley's is the spider of the lower left hand corner. If you can't already tell, we had a blast.