Gingerbread House 2012

This year our gingerbread house started with some serious internet research.  I’ve an entire pinterest board that I’ve started in years past.  But I wanted a really original shape, and I found this lovely cottage, and decided it would make an excellent gingerbread house shape.

And, yes.  I modeled it in SketchUp to get the right dimensions.

Annnnnd, yes, I made a cardboard model to make sure I had everything right and to make the stencils for the dough.

I made the dough with my mom

while Nick hammered jolly ranchers for stained glass.

The assembly.  Even after all that planning it turns out that we made all the pieces in mirror image of what I had imagined, and it threw me off a bit.  It still throws me off looking at it.

My parents planned on making a forest:

Here I am using tweezers to place holly berries.

The mess of candy:

I was all concentration, but at some point (when Nick conveniently had a camera in his hand) I heard something that I evidently found entirely startling.  This picture makes me laugh and laugh.

And here’s the finished house:

Look at Nick’s weathervane!

And our duck pond:

I like the shape of this house, but I think we needed another day of decorating.  More snow under the eaves, an awning over the front door, and a fence maybe.  And a snowman.  I miss the snowman from 2010.  Each year I hope to get better and better, so check back next year.

My mom said she saved this house in a box!  I guess you can check back next year for its condition as well.  Will the weathervane duck still stand?  Only time will tell.

blogging and I…

Blogging and I haven’t been hanging out very much.  I don’t blog and I haven’t been reading blogs.  Why, just today I saw a friend, who is living a fairy tale dream over in the Alps, comment on her new baby.  New BABY!  I mean, I’m missing an entire gestation?

One of the things that stops me is when I don’t get a chance to blog a big event I feel like I can’t move on to something new until I cover it.  So, instead of my eipc gingerbread house that should have been blogged long ago, you get the park, in January, in weather warm enough to wear short sleeves (well, if you’re a 3.5 year old boy – I had a sweater.)

So here we are at the park:

And this is what it’s like at the park:

My kids like a challenge, a struggle.

Even Roz, but she’s only two and she made it as far as she could.

I am always really excited when I manage to get all three movers and shakers in the same picture.  They never turn out very majestic but they are telling.

 

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTE. Wow, sorry.  That popped out.  I guess I am exercising a mother’s prerogative. 

We took a little hike through the empty trees:

 

I was there.  I was trying to get myself  in the picture with them, but that’s impossible.  So, here you get an awkward smile on a bare face and some trees.  You’ll have to take my word for it that the kids were there too, and that we were all having fun together. 

 

 

 

And since I may not be motivated to blog for a while, here’s another hike on a different day.  A day when I didn’t pack warm enough clothes and the hats were too small, and we ate bagels with cream cheese and had a generally good time.

I intended for these pictures to reflect the epic nature of poking sticks in a small pond, but alas, they are what they are.  You needed to see the big sticks though.

and let’s just …let me show off my valentine décor:  You know, because I can.

And where we sat beneath said artwork and had valentine cookies.  Cutters generously donated by Grandma. 

You know, you do less laundry when your kids don’t wear clothes.

Eat the frosting first.

Until next time I feel like blogging!