Gingerbread Houses

 We made gingerbread houses every year when I was a kid.  I like doing them, and we have made them them a couple times, although not in recent years.  I decided we were going to make them this year, so we did. Sort of.  I noticed there was a set of cut outs at the church so we borrowed them.  Well, they did save on time, and cutting out the dough shapes was so much easier.  However, the cutters were not very even and the roof was a wee bit small, and the pieces did not match very well at all when putting the houses together.  It made life much more difficult when attempting to construct them.

Marian had the patience and skill to wait for her house to set up so she could decorate it.  Rylee didn't have a choice, since I frosted her house together and then dragged her off on an errand while the frosting set.  Callie refused to give up, but also refused to give her frosting time to dry, so she never managed to get the darn thing to stay together.  It was quite the exercise in frustration for her!

While I was out with Rylee at the commissary, I had told them to wait and let their houses dry.  I returned to see my directions had not been followed. Marian was carefully working on her house- applying tiny sprinkles to her roof, one by one.  Callie was near tears because her house kept falling apart.  Delaney..... well, her house was roofless, but it looked like some hooligans had sprayed it all with graffiti.  It wasn't till later I realized she had grabbed the gel COLORS to decorate with, not frosting.  So there was a lot of color going on for her and she was covered with it as well.  Fun times!

Delaneys gel-splattered house and blue-dyed mouth.

Zoom in and check out that lovely border on her roof. 

Look of Death from a cranky Callie.

She finally gave in and just frosted the pieces to eat. 

When attempting to install the roof, Delaney's house imploded and she gave up.  This was the lovely mess of my table! 

Happy to sample the fruits of her labors and not sad at all that her house didn't survive. 

Rylee, decorating her house. 

Callie was happier once she moved on to the eating part. 

Aack!  Look at those hands!