Actually we used cinnamon graham crackers. I briefly considered attempting my mom's recipe for the real fancy traditional gingerbread houses. She always made the prettiest ones and I loved them so much. I have never done them. She promised next year she will do them with us after Thanksgiving. And after this project, I'm sure that that's a MUCH better idea than me attempting them on my own for the first time.
I had to use sugar glue to stick the graham crackers together.
No one warned me about sugar glue, so I had no idea...
I burned every tip of every finger and got two blisters on my thumb, one really yucky one. Graham crackers were breaking all over the place. I was screeching in pain every time I got burned and expleting every time a cracker broke ( there were many).
It was a mess.
Not exactly the sweet christmas scene I had imagined.
I wanted to make really big houses (mansions) for the boys to decorate but I broke so many crackers I could only make one mansion and three much more humble houses. I decorated the big one so that the boys could get some ideas from it on how to do theirs.
It turned out they didn't need the model at all - they were sooo creative and imaginative with theirs and I was really soooo impressed.
Instead of using the "royal icing" I just frosted the houses so that it would be easy to stick the decorations right on.
The first few pictures are of my very crude gingerbread house (mansion).....
It's not the prettiest thing but it was fun to make.
(despite my poor burnt, blistered fingers)
This next picture is NOT for the gaggers out there....you know who you are.
This is how I got my nickname, Grace (as in graceful not), from Ken (ever the sarcastic).
He says no matter what I do I always manage to get injured.
This is the worst blister I've ever had in my life and for some reason I want everyone to see it.
I yelled at my mom for not warning me how dangerous and painful this was.
Darn sugar glue.....
I assembled and frosted the houses for the boys, layed out the kitchen table with yummy decorations like mini candycanes, marshmallows, m&m's, chocolate kisses, dots, fruit loops, snowman peeps, little gingerbread boy cookies, multicolored kissables,
and colorful round swirly hard candy.
We put on Ella Fitzgerald's Swinging Christmas CD and the boys went to town on their houses.
As you can see they each really put their hearts into it and did a really wonderful job!
The boys are very proud of their masterpieces! 
I baked some sugar cookie cutouts the other night and hopefully we'll get a chance to decorate them tonight!
Fa La La La Laaaaa...
La La La Laaaaaaaaaaaaa....
2 comments:
Last year we tried to build a gingerbread house from a kit I bought at Costco. It ended up in a broke heap of gingerbread pieces. We decided to just eat the candy and call it a night!!! I will e-mail you a picture if I can find one!!
OWIE! You have to pop that, sterilize it, and dress it for it to properly heal or it's going to hurt like the dickens when it pops itself (and it will). Ugh.
Send me your address please. I can't seem to find the envelope with it on there! (I just knew you were going to pick that picture!)
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