3rd Annual Pumpkin Carving Night

Love our pumpkin carving night - 3rd year now and it gets better & better! This year in addition to our usual guests of Manda & Feve, we also had Aunt Sisi, Nic and baby Jack over...the more the 'spookier' right?

I also got out some of last year's 'fall' nick-nacks to put up around the house like my framed burlap button pumpkin, my fall silk plant centerpiece, a little 'boo' sign, my 'fall' subway art, and my burlap wreath - which I updated this year, by adding some cream lace & a little "Autumn" bunting across it:

The boys watched football, while the kids played and the ladies chit chatted, drank some champagne & cooked in the kitchen...typical, haha! We had a fab menu of crock pot pulled pork sammies, cole slaw, mini corn dog muffins, 'skinny' spinach artichoke dip, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cheesecake and of course...pumpkin beer - wow!

It was my first time making pulled pork myself (crazy I know)! I just used a bottle of Phil's BBQ sauce, a pumpkin beer & water to cover a 3.5 lb pork shoulder. After 8 hours, that bad boy feel apart perfectly and inside Hawaiian roll 'buns' - it was melt-in-your-mouth amazing!!

The skinny dip is from HERE - and also turned out fab...so delish and less guilt than the regular spin/artichoke dips... yum yum.

Of course I wanted to add a little craft to the day...and did so with four insanely adorable mini witch hat headbands for us girls.

I used a super thick, somewhat stiff type of felt that I found at Michael's, however hot glue would NOT stick - I think because of the texture of the felt and/or the felt constantly wanting to un-fold itself out of the cone shape. So I ended up stapling it at the base, then covering the space left up to the tip with regular felt... it doesn't look so great up close in the back. However the front was so fab with green & purple ribbon and a scrappy orange, jeweled fabric flower...that no one noticed the crappy back!

Silly James!!

Once it started to get dark, we started our pumpkins - never will I EVER get one of the 'warty' pumpkins again. They are crazy hard to cut through. I was literally panting, sweating, and my hand was cramping up... not good. These pumpkins had some type of super strong protective layer just under the outside skin that made it nearly impossible to cut through, I had to use my kitchen knives! The inside meat was normal & very easy to carve though...so strange!!

Anyway, they all came out great...and luckily we have a nice 'shelf' outside our house to put them all on!