Annual Gingerbread House Party

We are so lucky to live in a neighborhood with great friends and wonderful families. Every year we get together for a "gingerbread house party." The kids look forward to the party and try to think of creative ways to decorate our "house." Our gang before we are covered in frosting and sick to our stomachs from eating too much sugar. Drew refuses to wear anything warm these days. Bonnie will understand...she has a son who honors a similar dress code.

Grace and her friend Kemily.

OK...here we go. We tried to explain to Grace how this all works. First we frost the house with Miss Lori's super glue-type frosting. Alyssa (first born and very type A) usually gets annoyed with the little ones sticking candy all over the house in random places. This year, she was given half the roof to do all on her own.

Grace was beside herself with all of the bowls of sugary treats laid out in front of her. She was so excited to decorate AND eat. It went something like, "one for the house, one for me..."

There are ten families that made houses this year (Thanks for all of your hard work making our houses Lori!!!), so it is always cool to wander around and get decorating ideas from the other families. One family added a deck to their house. Another had a gingerbread graveyard (a little morbid for me), and another had a really cute ice rink in their house's backyard. I loved the addition of the cute Peep reindeer this year!

Grace was my last kid decorating this year. She did not want to stop until every inch of frosting had a piece of candy on it.

Our house turned out great. Now we display the house on our piano (out of reach from our crazy, poorly trained dog who would eat the whole thing if he could get to it). On New Year's Day the kids get to go at it and eat whatever they want from it (usually requires some tools to break the house and pry off the candy)

Hope you have a great day!

Four more days until Christmas!!!! Bryce is so excited he is having trouble falling asleep...love it!