Gingerbread Houses

My family never did gingerbread houses when I was growing up (or even now), so it's not something that I associate with Christmas traditions.  Kaden and Lexi both saw them at their schools, though, which planted the idea in their brains.  I decided to make things easy on myself and do graham cracker houses and just let them eat them whenever they want.  So much of the time, actual gingerbread houses seem to be just for show.  What a waste of money!

So the Sunday night before Christmas, we set out to try our hands at gingerbread graham cracker houses!  The plan was to have Shane help Ari while I helped the other two kids.

This is the face I got when I told her she couldn't just eat all the candy.

Kaden wanted to do it all by himself.  I only helped a little with the framework.

Happy candy face!

Shane was going for most creative.

Heaven.

Shane's Ari's house!

Mine and Lexi's finished house.

Lexi's house from the side.

Shane made a garage.

And a Christmas tree...

And a doorbell.

Kaden copied Shane and did a garage of his own all by himself.  :)

All done!!

 Just for fun, on these next pictures I'll post underneath them what I said to the kids as I was taking the picture.  This is how well the girls follow directions:

"Look at the camera! Smile!!"

"Silly faces!"

"Smile pretty, girls!"

 Oh gosh they crack me up.

Then it was time to eat them!

Ari just wanted her plate of treats.

Nom, nom, nom.

They munched on the houses for the next couple of days.

It was slightly stressful, but definitely worth doing again.  We're going to make it our family tradition and I already started imagining how every year the house contest will grow bigger and bigger and someday all the grandkids will be "helping" as I bake cookies and Shane and Kaden make elaborate houses.  :)  I love Christmas time!