Our First Gingerbread House!

My father-in-law paid us our yearly visit. Yes, he rarely stops by even though he's 10 minutes away, retired and our kids are his last grandkids...but whatever; I'm not bitter or anything.

He stopped by for 15 minutes; I kid you not. He doesn't stay long; just long enough to drive you nuts with his passive-aggressiveness and leave. Nice. At least today he came bearing gifts, so I dealt with the passive-aggression and then he left.

He baked us some "Slovenian" cookies. He found out his family originated in Slovenia about three or four years ago. Before then, he thought he was Yugoslavian. Before that it was German. Now, we're officially Slovenian until he researches back more and finds out he's part Antartican or something. The "Slovenian" cookies look eerily like the cookies he once touted as being German and Yugoslavian. Interesting. Anyway, he also brought us a precut, ready with icing and candies, gingerbread house kit! Yay! One more thing to add to my already full list of "must do" for Christmas.

I decided to be brave and actually tackle this with the kids this afternoon when I knew I'd have Robin for backup! If I'd waited any longer, we would have put it off 'til next year and I doubt even this gingerbread would last that long. So...the adventure began:

Here we are with all the pieces "stuck" and the kids are adding gumdrops to the roof. What this doesn't show is that the roof is slowly separating from the house frame and there will be many attempts to keep it together and much icing used to keep the house from sliding apart. Next time, maybe we should be patient and wait for the icing to dry before we add more weight to it by decorating! Or...maybe not! ;)

John decorating his gingerbread man. He's quite focussed, isn't he?

Look at how neatly and precisely my girl decorates her gingerbread man. She's quite the perfectionist, that one.

William got all creative. Look how cute his gingerbread man is!

Here is our magnificent creation! It kinda looks like a candy factory exploded all over our little house. :D

Side view.

View from the back.

While I doubt we'll actually consume it, I think it will make a pretty decoration for the rest of the Christmas holiday.