One week until Halloween!

I drove home with a kick-butt jack-o'-lantern belted into my front passenger seat.

Funny thing was, I found myself doing that arm thing that parents do when they have to stop suddenly. You know, where the right arm just juts out in front of the person - whether seven or 70, or actually a bag of groceries (or just a single giant vegetable) - as if somehow that was going to make the critical difference in the event of a collision?

But seriously, this is a special jack-o'-lantern. Toronto Star Living section designer, and resident pumpkin expert, Jo-Ann Dodds, created it for the video we just posted on how to carve a cool pumpkin. Lucky for me and my two boys, Jo-Ann kindly gave it to us to enjoy for the week. As long as we can keep it safe from racoons in our enclosed porch - and provided the weather stays cool - the jack-o'-lantern will be fresh to impress on Halloween.

The video is just part of the great offerings on parentcentral's fun Halloween Guide.

If you haven't seen the pumpkin stencils yet, make sure you download them this weekend.

The weather is perfect for a family outing to a pumpkin patch. Not sure where to go? Check out Patrick Cain's cool map of GTA area pumpkin farms.

And while many of us may start out with great visions of imaginative pumpkinscapes framing our front doorways, when push comes to shove, hollowing out pumpkins is kind of time-consuming. If Thursday comes and you have find yourself with more pumpkins than patience, try these simple mess-free approaches to pumpkin decoration. I'm counting on the toilet paper "mummy" idea to get me out of carving one of our beast-like gourds.

Don't get me wrong. Halloween is really fun when you've got kids, and I'm looking forward to preparing this weekend and in the days ahead. If I get REALLY motivated, I just might make a batch of popcorn balls using my granddad's secret recipe. We'll see.