Gingerbread Houses

One evening, the kids and I headed over to the grandparent's house determined to channel our inner Hansel and Gretel by decorating gingerbread houses. We were there for only a couple of minutes when suddenly there was a knock on the door which quickly became the catalyst for the chaos that followed shortly thereafter. Poor Hudson was trapped in his high chair, and was unable to follow Bryn, Liam, and Erin as they raced to the front door. When they got there, they found a certified letter from the North Pole that one of those sneaky little elves must have dropped off.

Erin read them the letter which was written by the hand of Santa Claus. For all you unbelievers out there, the letterhead said from the desk of Santa Claus and therefore is concrete evidence this was in fact a letter from the Big Man himself. The kids sat in rapture while Erin read the letter, placing special emphasis on the "make sure you are being really good" part.

Once the kids settled down, we busted out the pre-made gingerbread houses and began to decorate them. Within a couple of minutes, the kids got bored with decorating and had much more fun stuffing their faces with Christmas stars and gum drops. Hudson even got in on the action and sucked on a peppermint stick until he got nice and sticky which occurred within ten seconds of the first lick.

When the kids found out that it was much more fun to lick frosting off the knife rather than placing it on the gingerbread house, the decorating fell onto the shoulders of the mothers. And, as you can plainly see, I take gingerbread house decorating very seriously.

We finished the houses and just so happened to have a significant amount of frosting leftover. I decided to put that frosting to good use and gave Miss Bryn her very own mustache and goatee. And being the great mother that I am, I also shot a good portion straight from the bag directly into her mouth. It wasn't much later when I began cursing this idea as I attempted to put her to bed that night. But at the time, she couldn't stop laughing, which in turn, made me laugh too.

The final product would have made even the most seasoned contractor proud of our so called "carpentry" skills. Granted, they probably won't be eaten, but then again, these pre-fab houses are typically just eye candy, right?