Pumpkin Carving Party Success

It's over. All nine girls and their pumpkins have departed. All that is left is a huge mess and about 30 pounds of pumpkin guts!

Here's the treats...



A few tips on the treats:
The jack-o-lantern/orange/fruit bowls: It was a pain in the tush to get the 'guts' out of the little oranges, but they carved easily with the pumpkin carving tools. These were a hit with the girls, a couple actually took them home. We also had a 3 year old guest who really enjoyed them.

The doughnut hole eye balls: I do not have a double boiler so I can not work with melted chocolate well. If you are good with working with this stuff, these are probably a very simple, quick project. But, since I am not, these took a long time. Again, the girls loved them though.

I just went with simple cupcakes as our 'sugary' treat. I stuck in some cute haunted picks and they were good to go.


I also made some hot butter apple cider in the crock pot, which was not a hit with the kids. One mom liked it (or she was just being polite) but not one kid wanted hot cider, they all wanted it cold.

Annika was very excited to have a guest over as well. Clearly I was not going to have them carving pumpkins but I did not want them to miss out on the festivities. So I ran to trusty Michaels, bought 2 craft pumpkins, 1 can of chalkboard paint and some chalk. Voila, jack-o-lanterns fit for 3-4 year olds!


I'd say it was a success. Fun was had by all and thankfully a couple of moms stayed to help with the actual pumpkin carving. One pleasant surprise was that I had a bunch of the kits and stencils and only 2 girls used them. Everyone else wanted to use their imagination and go freehand. Ah, yes, good old imagination.

Happy Halloween!