Gingerbread Real Estate

My first memories of making a gingerbread house are at my high school friend Katie’s birthday party.   It became a tradition.  Each year her mom would bake the houses and make the icing and supply all the candy.  We’d all come over for her birthday in December to decorate our houses.  It was a ton of fun!  We’d sit and talk, sneak candy and decorate our houses.  I believe we made an all night affair out of it.

At least I hope so.

Because take a closer look at what I am wearing.  The good ol' ESLEEP flannel pajama shirt with my jeans.

Stylin'

No one else is in their pjs here.  My one friend is wearing her Ace Hardware Polo shirt so I assume she just came from work.  Did I show up in jeans and a pajama shirt?   Or did I get icing all over my shirt and change into my pajama shirt b/c I was planning to spend the night?  That is the option I am going for.  Because I truly hope I didn’t walk around wearing pjs and jeans as my fashion statement in high school.  Though I wouldn’t put it past me because I really was THAT cool.

I really did enjoy constructing these homes each year with my friends.  So much so, that I decided we must begin such a tradition in our home.

The first time we attempted it my son was 18 months old.

He quickly caught on that one of the best parts of decorating gingerbread houses is eating the decorations.  :-)

We didn’t get to it the next year… guess I was still adjusting to life with two kiddos.

But the next year we were back at it again.  This time with two eager helpers and one “supervisor.”

I learned a valuable lesson that year.   It took three days to build this house.

One to make the house pieces.

One to assemble the house.

One to decorate the house.

I decided after that to wait until the kids were older to make our houses from scratch.  I envision a day when they are older and are excited about designing their own mansions.  We’ll each design and build our own and have a whole village on our counter top.

But with three preschoolers, I think the “made from scratch” aspect is lost on them.

This year I bought a kit at BJ’s.  It has the pieces already made, the icing ready, and the candy included.  And I think it was actually cheaper than buying all that candy individually.   I’ll post pics of that fun at a later date.

In the mean time, clic on over to THAT family to check out more fun from the past!