One of my favorite traditions is to carve pumpkins with my family.  We always have a family home evening night at my parents' house the Monday before Halloween to carve pumpkins.  My dad grows enough pumpkins for everyone to carve and always grows a few giant pumpkins.  I always carve one of the big ones, and I am usually the only one.  We usually have a dinner consisting of different soups and rolls and then get to business. 
Once I cut the tops off, Steve will gut the pumpkins.  Brinton tried to help . . . a little . . . for a second . . . and decided that was gross.  Once they are clean, I carve them all.  I let Brinton and Zander choose the shape for the top of their pumpkins.  Brint chose a square and Zander chose a star.  Once I cut that star out, Zander was so happy that I could have just stopped there with his.  He really thought it was the coolest thing.  Instead of tracing patterns onto the pumpkins before carving, I had the boys just choose what kind of face they wanted.  Brinton had been talking about an angry face for days, and Zander wanted a happy face.  Easy enough!  Brinton chose for Conley to have a ghost, so I free handed that as well.  My pumpkin was a little more work because I did use a pattern.  I had to blow it up and cut it out before I could trace it on like a stencil.  I always stand on the table to carve my huge pumpkin and usually someone makes fun of me.  This year, I used a drill for the eye holes and it was wonderful.  I'm thinking that power tools are the way to go with carving pumpkins :)  I had to take a picture of each of the boys proudly displaying their pumpkins that they spent so much effort creating. 
I think they turned out pretty cute.  When everyone that was there had finished carving their pumpkins, we lined them up on the counter and lit them all. 
I had to take several pictures to get them all because there were so many!  Once we got home, we put them all out on our front porch and tested them. 
I had to take a couple of pictures with the surrounding decorations because we really went all out this year.  Both Brinton and Zander are so proud of the decorations and pumpkins and have to show everyone that visits everything out there.  Zander especially loves the "punkins" and goes to look at them any time the front door is open.  It's fun to have all of that out there, but I must admit I am a little ready for Halloween to be over so my front porch can look normal again.