Christmas Advent Calendar, Day 8: Make a Gingerbread House

Blogging when I should be sleeping ... I'm solo parenting this week for the first time with two kids and man, it is exhausting. I'm hanging in there just fine; both kids have been really well behaved but it leaves little time for me to do things like eat and shower ... not to mention blog or heaven forbid, order my Christmas cards. Thankfully, my mother-in-law, Janie, stopped over a few times to help or I'd be one stinky / starving mess.

Before the days get away from me, I wanted to document one of this past weekend's Christmas advent calendar activities: making a gingerbread house. I'll admit I'm a bit of a novice gingerbread house maker as we never made them when I was a little kid. Last year's experience was one I didn't want to repeat. I stumbled upon a pre-made gingerbread house at Costco a few weeks back, and you better believe I snatched one up in a heartbeat. The pre-assembled decorate-your-own variety is much more my cup of tea.

I told Tory we could put together the gingerbread house after her nap. She took a nice (for her standards) nap and the first thing she said after she woke up was "Mom, make candy house now?" Girlfriend doesn't miss a beat.

This gingerbread house was pretty fancy, complete with red fondant, white and green frosting, gum drops, hard candies and peppermint candy canes to decorate. I piped the frosting on the roof and showed her how to stick candies on before it dried. She had a fun time decorating until she got a little on her hands and licked them. Then it was all over -- she was obsessed! No longer was our activity about decorating the house ... it was now all about eating the house. Tory took her hands and scooped off frosting just as quickly as I piped it on.

Daddy, wanna try some yummy frosting?

Lest you think Baby Brother wasn't part of the action

Mmm Mmm ... don't mind it I do!

Making a gingerbread house was much more fun with Tory this year. She marveled at our "candy house" perched up on the counter top for the rest of the weekend. A big hit in the round-up of advent calendar activities.