Normally, we would just buy a few pumpkins and put them on the porch..but two years ago, we went to BLAZE-What is BLAZE you ask??? It's the most electrifying Halloween event at the Van Cortlandt Manor
@Croton-on-Hudson, (New York), featuring more than 4,000 (yep 4,000)  individually hand-carved, illuminated jack o’ lanterns! Meander through an 18th-century riverside landscape and discover a breathtaking display: snakes, a giant spider web, an undersea aquarium, butterflies, super-sized dinosaurs, pirates, ghosts, even a colossal Pumpkinhenge…all made of jack o’ lanterns!

After seeing this, we decided that we needed to CARVE our pumpkins too......so, I started the process last week and have done 1 so far, just a spooky face to practice...tomorrow we try our Barack Obama jack-o-lantern..YEAH BABY....hmmm, we shall see how it turns out....we didn't get to go to BLAZE this year so enjoy our pictures that we took back then.   Of course we froze our asses off cause we left Maryland and it was all nice & warm and then got to NY and realized we were totally underdressed-think crop pants people!Who knew that NY would get sooo bitter cold by Halloween???  I'm talking gloves, hat and scarf weather..yuk.  Anyway, enjoy my pics-these carvers are awesome and put so much work into this; it truly is more amazing in person.  IF you have never carved a pumpkin I would definitely give it a try. It's really not as hard as one might think.  Just make sure you have one of those kits and some other simple carving tools.  The more you do it, the easier it becomes.