Happy Halloween and a pumpkin carving tip

First off, Happy Halloween! Have fun and be safe. We'll be having a quick dinner and then heading out to Trick or Treat. My youngest is going as Darth Vader, and my older son is dressing as a deer hunter.

Now, if you're like my neighbor, you LOVE Halloween. She goes all out with her decorating. Me, I like carving pumpkins. Each of the kids gets a pumpkin of their own, and I get one, all for me.

This year, we had some templates. One was a ghost. I bought a white pumpkin (which, by the way, are absolutely edible) and decided to carve my pumpkin so that some of the flesh was left between the candlelight and the design. Trying to cut a pumpkin this way with a knife is tough, so I asked my husband to bring me his woodcarving chisels. Very, very, very carefully, I made small shallow cuts to remove the skin, and then slowly peeled away layers of the flesh, until the light from a flashlight glowed through.

The ghost turned out so well, that my husband requested a pentacle pumpkin. I can't wait to try out some new designs next year.

His poor little hands

My youngest son really suffers when the weather turns cold. He has fine Irish skin, like a porcelain doll, but his knuckles dry out and crack every single winter. We use Vaseline on them, mostly because it doesn't sting. Vaseline isn't the best thing for him to be putting on his hands in his first grade class.

Yesterday, I discovered Vaseline® Intensive Rescue™ Healing Hand Cream. This stuff is fantastic! It isn't too wet or too sticky and dries quickly. It has virtually no scent and it doesn't sting raw skin. He rubbed some into his cracked knuckles yesterday, and they are at least 50% better today.

Family First

There are a ton of "mom-blogs" in the blogosphere, but there have been many things happening that I'd like to share about my family and my life. I blog about writing and books at Virtual Wordsmith, if you'd like to check that out, as well.

I'll be writing about the cute (and sometimes not so cute) things my kids do and say, reviews of things that work for us, books that are relevant to children and family, ways to cut corners on costs and cooking from scratch.

Hang around, you might be highly entertained.