My favorite season of the year is fall. I love the changing leaves, the cooler temperatures and the need for funky looking blazers. And, of course, fall means Halloween. I love carving pumpkins and roasting the seeds. It’s a tradition we've had in our house for a long time. But when my girls were small, carving pumpkins was a tricky and scary ordeal. So, we came up with some other alternatives that our girls could help with that didn't involve sharp knives.

Candy Pumpkins

Instead of carving faces in this Jack-o-Lantern, we would use candy instead and glue or pin it to the pumpkins. It’s a great way for kids to be able to decorate the pumpkins themselves - and a sweet way to do it. From experience, hot glue guns don’t work so well - it melts the candy but craft glue or push pins will do the trick.

Potato Head Pumpkin

If your toy box was anything like mine, the Mr. Potato Head pieces are always floating around. Using the pieces to create fun and goofy faces is always a fun job for the whole family. The pieces go in fairly easily by twisting back and forth.

Foam Pumpkin

You can get those packages of sticky foam pieces at any craft or dollar store. You can get them in all different shapes and sizes to decorate your pumpkin. Even the littlest fingers will have fun helping with this.

Painted Pumpkin

Paint, glitter glue, puff paint and even glow-in-the-dark paint can all be used to decorate After you’ve painted, you can spray glitter paint to make the whole thing sparkle.