The Phipps Family: North Pole Party

Well hello there ole' blog! I was inspired by the great Kelle Hampton's North Pole Party and decided it was time to give it a try in our Cobbler House. Kelle started with a small group of nine little girls and it's grown bigger every year. I decided to skip ahead and start big, with an attendance of 26 kids under the age of 10. And the BEST decision I made for this party was to talk my good friend RaeAnne into photographing this inaugural event. She captured the magic in.every.single.shot.

I remember seeing this cool North Pole phone at Target for $20.00 and coveting it a bit. Last week I found it at the Salvation Army for $1. Yes, $1.

Also big news. I won a giveaway. I have NEVER won a giveaway. I won a dozen sugar cookies from my friend Ivy Anderson and they were so beautiful it felt wrong to eat them.

But they were also delicious.

I put out a bunch of thank you notes for the kids to write to anyone they wanted to thank. I found one left on my counter from a sweet little boy in our neighborhood. 💙

This activity went hand in hand with the Light the World challenge for this day.

Then came the Gingerbread House competition. This was one event that I was a little nervous about. I knew that it would be equal parts AWESOME and pure insanity. My friend Jenny, saved my life. She stayed and helped hold graham cracker walls and put out fires left and right.

Here we are with our hands covered in frosting.

Little elves busy at work. This was exactly when my mother-in-law walked in for a quick visit and just started cracking up...

We split the kids into teams and told them there would be three prizes for

1. The most creative

2. The house I'd most like to live in

3. The house I most want to eat

My mother-in-law jumped right in and helped Hazel and her teammate transform their capsized house in a graham cracker tee pee. Genius. They ended up winning the creativity prize.

That little house on the left belonged to four year old Penny whose partner lost interest but she endured to the end and completed that little Cheezit roof by herself. I was so proud.

Adam and Michael showing me their wifi tower.

At one point, RaeAnne (photographer) took a break to comfort Eloise who was in tears because her house would not stay up, even though I helped her rebuild it three times. Finally, she just added a bunch of toppings to it, winning her team the "House I'd want to eat" award.

We had the kids fill up little buckets with reindeer food.

Oats, raisins, glitter, chips. You know, the usual.

While a few teams were finishing their gingerbread houses, we played some games which mostly included marshmallows. We tried chubby bunny with giant marshmallows but most of the kids could barely fit one in their mouth without gagging. Those that were willing to give it a try had to sing "Jingle Bells" with their mouths full.