2015 Family Pumpkin Carving Contest

This year's family pumpkin carving contest had some pretty good entries.  I am a little embarrassed to say that yes, I won again.  The bottom pic is from my household.  The bottom right was mine, 1st place.  Next to it was my oldest son's, 4th place.  Top left was my 7 year old son's.  It was 6th or seventh, who cares.  He got the point though, that he is going to have to man up and learn how to cut a pumpkin.  My wife's was the toothy one on the top right.  It got third.  The big mouth full of teeth is a recurring theme for her, maybe it will work out better for her next year.

The top pic has all the entries. The two on the farthest right that were not very well lit were not officially entered because they were produced by non family.  I think that a couple of others could have won just as easily as mine this year.  Of note, my sister did the 2 face one, top middle.  It looks way better lit up in the dark than it did in daylight.  My step mother tried to play on the popularity of the 70's rock band KISS, but the judges were of the wrong demographic to be impressed and she was appropriately given last place.  Happy Halloween!!!!!

2014 Family Pumpkin Carving Contest

This year the core group of contestants was reduced by one because my sweet wife was at home sick.  My boys both did their own pumpkins by themselves from beginning to end.  Our guest judge was a neighbor who is a college professor with a PhD so he knows a thing or two.  He correctly chose my pumpkin on the top far right as the winner.  My 10 year old's was on the top left and it came in second place.  My father got 3rd with his yearly standard pumpkin on the right in the middle row.  My seven year old boy did a little too much work around the left eye of his and ended up blowing it out.  It is the one on the left in the middle row.  He got last place but I thought it was still pretty good. 

2013 Family Pumpkin Carving Contest

This year I had a hard time making the effort because I was so fatigued after taking my kids camping. We had a good time though. Somehow we let my teenaged sister talk us in to letting 2 of her best friends judge the competition and believe it or not her kitty cat took the prize.

2012 Family Pumpkin Carving Contest

We had another good year for our annual family pumpkin carving contest. The smack talking was at an all time high, while the quality of work may be in question. We again did not allow the judge to know which pumpkin belonged to whom before judging in order to make it as fair as possible. In addition to the immediate family, we had 2 entries from relatives visiting from out of town. The top pic shows all entries. On the bottom are my household's entries. Mine is on the top right, it got 1st place. My wife got 3rd, it is in the top left spot. My oldest boy came in dead last. He actually made his design and cut it by himself this year for the first time, his is on the bottom. My youngest boy made the design and mom cut it for him, his is top middle and it earned the next to last spot. The judge somehow thought he was going for the R2D2 look and gave him a small break.

2011 Family Pumpkin Carving Contest

We had another successful pumpkin carving contest this year. We had no injuries, no fights, and fair judging. There were only eight entries, all are pictured above. The youngest 2 entrants, both my children had to draw their design and my wife cut the pumpkin from that design. Everyone else did all their own work from start to finish. As always no foreign props were allowed and stencils could not be used either. Members of my household made a clean sweep (below). My wife came in first place with the blazing head (top right). I had the second place pumpkin seen on the bottom with the arms and the crown. My 7 year old came in third with the scowling vomit look on the far left and my 3 year old's was fourth with the sagging left eye (top middle). Thanks to our judges who are new to the neighborhood and are now glad we select different guest judges to help us out every year.

Time-lapse of the Week #8

Since I have been preoccupied with halloween preparations, I haven't really looked for any good time-lapses to feature. Therefore I will gratuitously only show my latest time-lapse which I just posted today. It was a 39 day project. I took one picture every 30 minutes of my compost heap and it is played back at 30 fps. With this being October, halloween is the obvious theme. Enjoy.

2010 Family Pumpkin Carving Contest

This year's pumpkin carving contest was a lot of fun. We had eleven entries. Our original guest judges had to cancel so we ended up getting a couple of different neighbors from down the street to help out. These are the entries from my household. The top left one was my six year olds. It won top honors this year, the design was all his own and he drew the outline but my wife cut it for him. The second devilish Jack-O-Lantern was my entry, it got second place. The top right one was my 3 year old's. He had the marker in his hand and I helped guide his hand for the outline. It was eleventh and last place. Next year he will be all own his own with the drawing. My wife's is the bottom pumpkin, it came in fourth.

2009 Family Pumpkin Carving Contest

A few days ago we had our annual family pumpkin carving contest again. It was alot of fun as usual. The dynamics of the contest changed this year with the expected results. The above jack-O-lanterns were only from members of my household. My wife and I carved our own pumpkins as expected. Hers is the toothy one on the far left. It won first place out of a total of nine entries. Her work has improved greatly over the last couple of years. Mine was the one with the sword through it which was made from the cut out portion of the mouth. It suprisingly only got fourth place. Now here is where things changed from previous years. My five year old drew his design for me to cut out which is the standard of our family for his age. It came in dead last and is the third from the left. Traditionally children too young to understand the meaning of this activity like my 23 month old are allowed to have a parent design and cut their pumpkin. However, this year due complaints from other jealous family members that this gave me 2 entries, we compromised on letting my 5 year old draw the the others while I cut it out. He used the same design as with his but I interpreted it a little differently and the result earned a second to last place finish and is seen on the far right. Happy Halloween to all!

2008 Family Pumpkin Carving Contest

This year's family pumpkin carving contest for halloween was pretty exciting. There were 14 entries and all of them were interesting. The jack-o'-lanterns you see above were from my household which again did well. The toothy one on the far left was my 11 month old's entry; it won first place with a little help from dad. The sad one next to it was my wife's second place winner, much better than last year's sorry effort. The hellish jack seen swallowing up a desolate soul which is third from the left was my entry. It got 4th place. I really expected better, but my hat's off to the others. The one on the far right was my 4 year old's, he was deemed big enough to create his own this year; he drew it and I cut it out, hence the very avant-garde final product. It actually placed seventh, not bad out of 14.

Bat-O'-Lantern

This year's family pumpkin carving contest involved nine entries, with these three being entries from my household. My wife did the BOO! pumkin, a very unoriginal performance, deserving its seventh place finish. My official entry was the one on the right, it was supposed to have 3 eyes but its left eye came off when I was removing the part I cut out, I think it turned out just as well anyway. It got fourth place. The middle one was my 3 year old's official entry which I spent most of my time on. It was meant to be a bat; it won first place. I made the ears in a fashion similar to last year's chimp pumpkin. Next year, the quality of my boy's entries will go down, when we will be required to cut his pumpkin from what ever he draws on there without any help.

My Chimpumpkinzee or Ape-O'-Lantern

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Here are three of the 10 entries in my family's annual pumpkin carving contest. These three were from my household. The ape-like jack-o'-lantern in the middle was mine; it placed third. When I decided what I wanted to do, I couldn't find anything of the sort on the web, so I am posting this one for anyone who may be looking to do something similar. To that end I am going to throw in the phrase monkey pumpkin, which is a search phrase I used, with only two relevant results seen here and here (halfway down).

I am particularly proud of how the ears turned out. I cut out the ear holes using the desired shape of the ears with a squared off peg on the back, which just plugged right into the cut out portion. Happy Halloween.