Pumpkin carving...Halloween fast approaches..

The English rarely understand how besotted Americans are with Halloween. Trick and treating is huge here and if you say trick you probably won't get egg'd as in the UK! I have already bought Iss her princess dress for Saturday and today it was time to carve pumpkins... this blog is really for my friend John who is a pumpkin carving virgin...John...if Issie can manage it I'm sure you can!

1. Buy a pumpkin with a nice side to carve a face into and cut it's head off

2. Scoop out it's guts and discard, leave about an inch thick on it's face side!

3. Draw a face on the best side of your pumpkin and then use a sharp pairing knife to stab it to death, joining up your stab marks. You don't have to be Picasso, the light will shine thorugh as long as you can make some holes!

4. Put a candle inside and it's head back on and you have a carved pumpkin!

Issie and I had great fun today. She was ace and worked hard at gutting her pumpkin and then giving it a scary face

Even Gary wanted in on the act after eating some of Issie's dropped pumpkin seeds...

Within an hour we had two super cute Pumpkins ready to be lit Saturday night. Issie was very proud of herself, she gutted it on her own and drawn the face, I just helped her with the cutting.

Warning though, Pumpkin gutting will exhaust your child...don't do on Halloween itself as they will sleep through it!