This Old Gingerbread House

This year, since it is our first year spending Christmas alone, I really wanted to make it very special. To do this there are a few things I wanted to do with the kids. One of those things was make a gingerbread house as a family. Originally I wanted to do this in early December, but because of finals, Brett was not able to do it until yesterday. I didn't want to make the gingerbread myself, mostly because I have never done that before and I wasn't sure how it would turn out, so I decided I was going to buy a kit. Unfortunately when I went to get one they were all out. So we decided to make it out of graham crackers. Brett wasn't really all that into it until we had two walls done, then he kind of took over the project. It was really funny to watch him piping the icing onto the crackers. When he got all the walls done, he made a little stone pathway while he waited for the icing to harden so he could put the roof on. I have never seen someone put a roof on like he did. First he took two small graham cracker squares and cut them in half to get four small triangles. He then put those on the roof to give the roof a slant. Then he put the roofing crackers on, but put supports underneath to hold the center crackers in place. It was so cool to watch him work.

Then while he waited for the roof to set he asked me if there was more icing. I told him it was in the mixer. He walked over to the mixer and grabbed a handful of icing. He started to turn it into balls, and I had no idea what he was making. Then he started to place them on top of each other, and I still had no idea what he was making. It turned out to be a snow man for the front of the house. I called it "Frosting the Snowman." My friend Natalie had given us some chocolate covered sunflower seeds, that look just like Christmas lights when you put them on the house, and I grabbed an orange one and told Brett it was a carrot for the nose. Then Brett grabbed a red candy kiss and turned it into a Santa hat for the snowman. Unfortunately we didn't have any black candy for the eyes and mouth so Brett drew that on with a marker.

When we were done with the snowman Brett and I put the "lights" all over the house.

Brett wanted to put more candy on the house, but the kids would not allow us to touch their candy. Colin actually tried to rip the candy off that I had stolen from him. So in the end we just left the house as it was, and the kids never put any candy on the house.

Brett had a bunch of icing left over so he put it all over the ground and called it snow. I think he just really enjoyed decorating the house and wasn't ready to be finished yet.

After the house was done Brett took about a million pictures, and made sure he got a really good shot of his snowman.

I think this is going to turn into a tradition in our family. I wouldn't be surprised to find Brett making blue prints for next years house!