Gingerbread Houses

On Friday, December 17, we headed over to my sister's house for our annual gingerbread house making. That morning I had went shopping for Daddy with Mamaw while the boys played with Grandpa Georgia, so it had been a busy day! But, we were excited to eat dinner and decorate houses with Jen, Mike, Grace, Faith, Emma, Daniel and John. Grandpa Georgia was also there to watch, and Jen's friend Mary, her husband Jeff, and their three kids Ethan, Jared and Brayden were also there to decorate. All totaled, we had 10 kids, 7 adults, 5 houses and a partridge in a pear tree.

We started off eating dinner, which consisted of a delicious sandwich ring my sister made, fruit salad that Mary brought, and chex mix, cheese curls and cookies we took over. Then we got to the decorating portion. I started by squeezing on dots of glue and told the boys that they could choose which pieces of candy to hold onto that spot until it stuck there. Joshua took his turn helping me first, and Caleb came over second. Both boys ate more than they put on the house, I think. Here's Joshua holding a piece of candy that he's about to gobble.

The boys had fun for awhile, and they decorated most of the roof. Then they decided to go play, and I finished up the decorating as Shawn took many of the pictures. Unfortunately, Caleb took quite the spill down their basement stairs and got a big lump on his head. Poor little guy!

Here's a couple shots of Jen's dining room and the two tables filled with gingerbread houses, icing, candy and kids!

It was quite the party! One of their friends from church stopped in to carol and bring them cookie mix, too, while we were there.

I noticed this year that Joshua played more with the older kids. At one point they were playing football in the playroom, and they held the ball while he took a turn kicking it. Shawn also mentioned that they didn't treat him special like a little kid or mean and not include him, but rather he seemed to fit right in as they played (and the ages range from 10ish the whole way down to 1, with Daniel, Caleb & John being 3, 2 and 1, respectively.) The three youngest didn't seem to play with the older ones, but Joshua has now moved up to the new level, if you know what I mean.

I noticed in many of the pictures of me, my concentration has caused me to stick out my tongue and make weird faces. Good grief! It's harder than you think to get the icing to stick on certain angles of the house. But, it's fun in general to do and I love this festive tradition.

After we were finished, we took pictures of the finished houses and their creators. First, we got one of all five houses with all the kids who were there:

Then we took individual shots. Emma & Daniel worked on one together with their parents.

Grace & Faith got their own to split this year.

Instead of splitting up older and younger kids, I think Mary decided to have Jeff work on one house with Ethan and she worked on the other with Jared & Brayden. Here's their entire family with both houses.

Here's Jen's whole family with their two houses:

And here's our family with our little house. I love how Joshua's showing it off and Shawn's expression is priceless.

Here's a close-up of the finished house that is now displayed in our kitchen. Fun times!