Gingerbread

I love gingerbread houses.  I like making them because of the whimsy and fun they represent at Christmas.  I remember making one in 3rd grade with graham crackers.  I made them with kids at Christmas and I am excited now that I have kids that it can be one of the things we do at Christmas time.  Last year I had a kit that Gracie and I did together.  I do one thing differently though...after many many houses falling apart (partly due to the fact that I didn't know until this year that there is a specific type of icing you have to make!) a few years back I started hot gluing my house together first.  I know, it's cheating but it's worth it to prevent frustration of walls falling down.  This year I wanted to do it from scratch.  I began the search online to get ideas for a design and then during nap time I set to work.  It took one day to make the dough then letting it refrigerate (is that a word?!) A couple days later I rolled out the dough and cut out the pieces after cutting pieces from cardboard to make a model.  The pieces baked and cooled and then I hot glued, stepped back and looked and realized it looked like crap!  Well...probably mainly because there wasn't frosting on it yet and there were a lot of imperfections.  Let me tell you...after looking online and having this idea in my head I was a little disappointed at what mine turned out like but oh well...I'm far from perfect anyway ;) I had invited our friends Mike and Joanne over for the afternoon to help decorate.  They enjoy being around the girls and we hadn't seen them since pumpkin time.  We had hot chocolate and coffee and they decorated the house and Gracie even did some gingerbread men.  After the house was done Joanne read to the girls (she is a retired Reading Specialist).  It was a very nice afternoon with a lot of sugar!