It's gingerbread house time! Jeremy had to fly back to work, so the kids and I were working on our own. The girls couldn't quite decide on a plan they both liked, so we decided to make two! Naturally I felt like making my life easier....not quite. The only reason it worked at all was because Cambrie is old enough to handle a frosting bag and has the patience to follow her project through to the end. But before we even got to frosting we had to bake the gingerbread. Watching and waiting...
And we had to clean the creative space (well, actually it's the garage), so that we could eat dropped candy off the floor later that night.
Then we did a little pre-construction prep. Before Jeremy hopped on the plane, he had some time to make the sugar glass dome for McKenzie's observatory. She chose an observatory in honor of our NASA visit earlier this year. We've never done a glass dome before so there was a little learning curve, but he did a stellar job. He put the liquid sugar into a bowl, put the bowl into a salad spinner and spun it until it cooled into the dome shape. We thought it was pretty awesome. I applied the frosting, but McKenzie put on all of the candy she had chosen. She was a great little worker.
"SUGAR!"
When it came time for the holly berries, Leesa came over to teach her the art of holly berries. McKenzie even handled the tweezers and put on those itty bitty berries by herself.
When we put a light in it once it was completed, it looked awesome! She's pretty proud of it, but I think her favorite part is the solar system sculpture out front (she plans on sucking on that giant sun jawbreaker in a few short weeks when we dismantle the houses.)
Cambrie decided to go with a book theme. She wanted a pile of book and a book worm. To make the covers of the books we pulled out some fruit roll ups and covered them in leather. They were rather sticky, but incredibly colorful.
As we worked we started fine tuning her theme. The book titles became Harry Potter titles, then we added Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and eventually added little figurines from the books. Cambrie couldn't be happier it made it home without tumbling to pieces.
As we worked, a lot of candy fell on the floor. Daxton was there ready to pick it all up. I'm not entirely sure how much candy he consumed. I caught him stuffing his face with wrapped caramels, so luckily they weren't too messy, but a 10 month old on a sugar high is crazy! I was very glad to put the whirlwind child to bed.
The Kings went with a Monsters' Inc. theme.
And both girls with their masterpieces before calling it a night.
Once all the kids were in bed, I jumped in to help Dantley and Bruce with their Big Ben masterpiece. I like the fine detail work but that's impossible to do with kids on your lap. Surprisingly we finished everything before midnight, which must be some new kind of record for recent years.
