Gingerbread Houses

Last weekend, we ate mountains of jelly beans....errrr....I mean we decorated gingerbread houses!

I got these pre-made gingerbread houses at Costco and they were a cinch.  Already assembled and they came with 3 bags of icing (white and green), decorating bags, and candy.  We bought some extra candy to supplement, of course, and so we have a ton leftover. 

 I tried to do the fancy shingle look on the roof which gave the kids some place to stick the candy. I did not take gingerbread-making 101 beforehand which may have helped my techinque, but I think things worked out pretty well.

Maya was so funny!  Can you see her house?  She only wanted to put candy on ONE side of the roof!  haha!

What patient children I have!  They both waited while I slowly drew on the thatched roof and didn't even stick their little fingers in the icing!  Amazing!

Fun!

I liked this sweet picture of Maya's hand.

As we neared the end of our decorating, I realized that Maya's decorating turned into "mix all the candy together" time.  She had every kind in that one bowl and said, "First I mix them, THEN I decorate."  She is what we like to call "very particular" about how she does things. I have no idea where she gets it.

The finished product!  Darin helped Maya with the front of her house and I have to say it turned out a lot better than Nolan and my attempt!  Don't you love the shutters?

 Shortly after I took this picture, Nolan took off the "wreath"on the door, bit it in half, and stuck it back on the house.  Ha ha!!

Darin took this picture and I thought it was so cute...Nolan is definitely concentrating!

Nolan's finished product!

And in case they hadn't eaten themselves silly with candy (which they had!) there were gingerbread men that came with the kit which were quite delicious!  We smeared some icing on our tasty friends and had at it!