Gingerbread Houses

On the second snow day, I got up and decided I needed to do something with these kids. So, I called my trusty friends Sherri and Tami up and told them to bring the kids to make gingerbread houses.

I started out with grandiose plans of fresh gingerbread, then I realized that a) my kitchen could only handle so much mess as it was still recovering from a power outage and b) it was highly likely that I would have eaten most of the gingerbread. So, we busted out the graham crackers. I did, however, make Williams Sonoma's royal icing, and they stuff was like cement. Worked like a charm. We dug out whatever decorations we had, and we were a go!
Evan requested a skeleton on his. I think it was Sam's idea - oh boys!
Makayla's had some technical difficulties - as in too much candy on the roof. Oh well, she was a good sport about it.
The kid's favorite part was the chimneys, these rock candy stirring sticks I had left over from making a smoke stack on a train cake from Sam's first birthday. They looked darling and the kids were very impressed with their realistic chimneys.
See - I knew the icing was perfect when Sam picked up his whole house to take a bite and it stayed intact.

Our other friend T was there, unfortunately, I had left my camera in the cold car overnight so it was totally steamed up and had not defrosted by the time she had to leave to pick her sister up from preschool. So sad we have no pics of her, and she was wearing a clean sparkly shirt too (which her mother said was put on because she just KNEW I would take pictures. I guess I am a little crazy with the camera...). We remember her gingerbread house fondly, and that the idea for the mailboxes came from her and we were quite impressed with her skill at making flowers with the piping bags.

Fun fun, and it only took me about 4 days to get the floor mopped:) I love having friends that are such good sports and will come help to entertain my children even when they get invited at the last minute!