Gingerbread Houses From @#*!

Last year at Christmastime the boys and I made gingerbread houses just out of the blue one day and it was a ton of fun!  Neal was out of town or something but it worked out beautifully and all was good in the world.  This year I decided to keep the tradition alive.

A friend told me how she saves the kids' Halloween candy and use that for the houses so I snuck about half the boys candy and saved it.

I have a great gingerbread recipe with pattern so I made that.

For Family Home Evening we made stockings for all 6 missionaries in our ward and were doing the houses after.  I went and made the frosting while the kids waited.  While making the frosting I let go of the hand mixer so frosting ended up everywhere- including on me.  Strike 1.  Then I tried putting the frosting in my pipet bag which ended up not fitting my tips.  Strike 2.  We tried putting the houses together but just ended up with a gooey mess.  Strike 3.

So now I am completely mad and have to find another recipe and make that.  While making it I slammed the fridge door (I have hated this fridge from day 1) which later we found out cracked the condiment shelf so it kept falling off leaving condiments all over the floor anytime you opened the door.  I had to duck tape it on.

Finally I get the frosting done.  Garett has already lost interest and has preceded to just eat candy and his gingerbread.  We put the houses together and the kids start decorating.  Oh man.  I was still fuming- in fact I didn't even want to take pictures to remember this moment.  But the kids had an absolute blast so I guess it was all worth it?

Mom's house

Dad's house

Adam's house