Gingerbread houses

I have been wanting to write about our lovely Christmas for the past month, but life keeps getting busier, albeit lovelier. Still, I don't want to let time pass without writing this memory down. During Christmas Vacation, I decided to indulge the kids desires to make gingerbread houses. About 4 years ago, I made our gingerbread house from scratch, I don't think that I will do that again anytime soon, especially since my kids are easy to please as long as they have candy and frosting. I did try something new this year though. The lady that I teach with in primary taught me this handy little trick. This is melted sugar! I had no idea that you could do this. Just put a cup or two of sugar in a pan and cook it on medium-low heat until it melts. Then you can dip the sides of the graham crackers in it and stick them together. It sticks like super glue and it hurts like a bugger if you get it on your skin. I still don't have the technique down, so I got quite a few burns.

This is probably one of the happiest times that they had together during Christmas break. Their imaginations ran wild, and they feasted on candy for at least an hour around the table.

Lucy insisted on frosting the whole roof herself...that is until she needed help, and then refused it, and then needed help, and then refused it again. I am so confused!

Maddie put solar panels on her roof, her dad was so proud.

Hannah's house doubled as a teddy graham cloning machine. You can't see it in the picture but one of the "head" bears is holding a remote that controls the cloning device.

Johnny created a machine in the yard of his gingerbread house that could melt bears. It was only when he asked me to melt some chocolate chips for him that I realized why he had a line of bears waiting to enter a little box made out of candy. They would step into it shaped like bears and come out shaped like a gooey puddle of chocolate. That's my mad scientist boy for you.