GingerBread Houses

One of my FAVORITE Holiday traditions is the making of gingerbread houses.  It is a highlight of my childhood memories and now as an adult I LOVE sharing it with my kids.  This year we decided to invite some of our friends to join us.  So in addition to my kids we added 6 more (all between the ages of 6 and 2).  It was SO much fun. 

 Brooklyn, Trayton and JD

 Kade and RJ

 Jordynn was awesome and decorated her house entirely by herself.  She had a blast and I loved watching her be creative.  She was SO proud of herself.

 Lizzy, Leslie, Kade and Taylor

 Trayton and JD

One of my favorite moments of the night was giving our houses away.  I let each kid pick a family in the ward and then give them their house as a Christmas present.  Trayton was a little bummed to give away his house but I encouraged him to do so anyway.  We took it to one of his friends.  As he and I ran back to van he said, "Mom, that was so much fun!  I'm glad we did that."  Me too Trayton.

 Funny Story.  I made a huge house for Jonathan to decorate.  He made a masterpiece.  It was beautiful.  We knew exactly what family to give it to. They have four kids who would LOVE all that candy.  And they would appreciate the mastery of it all.  We loaded ourselves and our houses in the van and decided to deliver Jonathan's house first.  I was carrying it while Jonathan drove.  I've helped deliver gingerbread houses for nearly 20 years and was pretty confident I could carry Jonathan's masterpiece.  Halfway to our destination I noticed the roof starting to slide apart.  Leaving one hand on the bottom of the house to support it I caught the sliding roof just in time with my other hand.  But I needed a third hand to fix it as we drove.  Of course I don't have three hands so I just held it together laughing that we needed to hurry.  I'm not exactly sure what happened next.  Did we hit a bump?  Maybe.  But the house fell.  Icing went flying.  Candy went flying.  I probably screamed a little scream.  But never fear.  We were in luck.  NONE of the pieces broke.  We would piece it back together.  We could still save our gorgeous house.  We parked just down the street from our destination.  Carefully we began our reconstruction.  It was working.  We had the four sides up.  And then the roof broke in half.  Bummer.  Oh well. I decided we would still take it.  There is no way I want that much candy in my house.  With the four sides still up we put the roof inside the house and started driving down the street.  Poof.  The house imploded.  I am now covered in icing from head to toe.  The boys are laughing.  Jonathan laughs.  This is a good memory.  The house is destroyed.  But we arrived at our destination and the family is expecting us.  Jonathan had already called and told them we had a surprise.  We smile.  They are going to like this.  We take it in anyway.  The first thing the family sees is me covered in icing.  They are confused, wondering what kind of surprise is this.  We present our broken gingerbread home.  They LOVE it.  Good times.  I'm glad they get a laugh at our mess.  And I'm glad they let me clean up before we take the next house to another family.