Gingerbread houses

Sometimes we make gingerbread houses at home. This year one of the familys at school had a huge party and decorated houses.  There was lots of people and every kid got to decorate their own house.  Buddy had a scout event, but the girls and I had lots of fun and ate lots of sugar.

 

There were about 80 houses decorated that day.  Lots of fun for the kids and parents. The host family used it as a fundraiser for a charity that I completely can't remember the name of right now.  I thought it was a great idea.

Teacher Gifts 2012

This year the teacher (and neighbor)  gifts were bags filled with 6 different types of cookies.  I had fun making little bags.  The day spent making cookies was fun too, but not as much fun for me. The teachers loved them, I think partially because I gave them out a full week before the last day of school, so they were not overwhelmed with stuff on the last day of school before break.

 Each is different and they are fully lined, usually with the accent fabric. They can be folded over to stand up. 

 

This is the only Christmas themed bag, the print says NOEL.

Christmas baking 2012

It wouldn't be Christmas without lots of baking and cooking and little helpers licking the fork.

He climbed up by himself and picked up this fork when I was in the other room.  He is a smart little guy.

Chocolate Season

It is getting close to Easter and that means Daddy is getting into Chocolate molding again.  He tries to do it every year, but does not always succeed and is continually modifying his methods.  Desite it all, he keeps trying, and this year his first batch came out of the molds not looking so great, but he has fun and we enjoy the fruit of his labor.   The kids like to help too, but I am not sure how much help they really can be. 

Eating the Gingerbread houses

I don't have a lot of room in my kitchen and not much display space anywhere else.  So I needed to get rid of the gingerbread houses quickly.  Decision made, after dinner the kids were allowed to eat as much of their houses as they wanted, but whatever was leftover was going in the trash.  It was a great decision.  I threw away a lot of candy.
Princess was making a great effort, but then.....

Buddy with the remains of his, he ate a lot of candy in a short amount of time.

Munchkin ate  2 lolipops and her twizzlers before she gave up.

Gingerbread houses

We finally made the time, the kids have been begging to make gingerbread houses, so I finally made the time today.  They wanted to make little houses for each of them, rather than one large house, so they each got their own.  It was a challenge to help each child get a standing house, while still encouraging them to do it themselves.

This is the Princess house, she did it mostly on her own, with the exception of the roof.... It is more than a little crooked.  She dumped a huge pixie stick on top to make snow when it was done.  It was at least creative.

This is Buddy's house, he went for simple, but I think that was because he had the least amount of Halloween Candy left.

This one is Munchkins, I helped her the most, but she loved telling me where to put the frosting, so she could place the candy.  She had the most variety of Halloween candy left, so she had a few more options.

Daddy's cooking

Daddy had some time off for Thanksgiving and spent some of that cooking in the kitchen.  I love it when he cooks.  He is actually more adventurous than I am.  Some of his experiments are good, and other not so much.   One of his experiments that has been repeated over and over is the Raspberry brownies.  Basically pour a can of raspberry pie filling in a 9x9 pan and then cover with browies mixed according to the directions on the box.  Bake it until done (usually longer than directions on the box)  It is fantastic and we all love it.