Pumpkin time!

So this year, Thomas actually *grew* his own pumpkin (over at Nanny and Grandads), it's been sat on the kitchen table now for a couple of weeks waiting for the right moment to get the knives out (and today was the day)!  Despite spending a good while pretty adamant that we were to do a (Nintendo) "Mario pumperkin Daddy!" when it came time to ask Thomas today he decided (after browsing the internet for ideas) that a "Pumpking"-style scary smile was the perfect choice (phew!) -


- so we made a "lid" by cutting an angled hole in the top, reached inside and scooped out all the loose flesh and seeds -

- carefully setting all the seeds aside for later on, decided on the final design together -

- and got on with the cutting!

Meanwhile, we popped the cleaned pumpkin seeds into salty boiling water for ten minutes then roasted them in a 200 degree oven for 15-20 minutes-

- when cooked you can eat them whole (they are *so* crunchy and delicious), once we had managed to find some tea lights (and the sun had set by this time also) we were able to give our Pumpking a trial run (all ready for Wednesday)!!  Happy Halloween!