Gingerbread houses

Kathy came to visit recently and we satisfied our craftiness by making gingerbread houses. The official line is that we were doing it for Thomas, but...(to be fair, he had a ball!). We used to make these all the time when I was a kid--bowls and bowls of candy, a lot of frosting, and milk carton houses galore. Because of our smaller circumstances this year (and only 1 kid making a house), I went the kit route. Which would have been great, except that I didn't pull the box out early enough to see that the house needed to be assembled in advance so it could harden and be stable enough for little hands to add candy. Oops! One quick phone call later, Kathy arrived with candy reinforcements (yay!), graham crackers and milk cartons. She took home two full Nalgene bottles--one of skim milk and one of eggnog. We were left with a full glass of heavy whipping cream, so we'll be having Kilimanjaro as a special dessert treat this weekend--yum! Without further ado, here are the houses.

 Finished houses

 Just getting started, and below, TJ at work.

 Kathy's finished house, complete with aesthetic touches (no surprise, from an interior designer!).

TJ's finished house (I helped a little). Note the following details:

1. There's a doorknob made out of a red hot. This is T's second favorite part of the whole house, and he keeps pointing it out.

2. The two indicated gumdrops are shinier than the rest. That's because they were in TJ's mouth before going on the roof.

3. He loaded the walkway with candy. It isn't all stuck into frosting, so it's easier for him to pick off and eat.

4. Hard to see, but this is only half a peep snowman. The other half was eaten. As was a majority of the candy available for making the houses. He just.couldn't.stop. No matter what we said. 

5. Also hard to see, but this is a truck drawn out of frosting, at T's request. This is his favorite part. 

By the way, TJ doesn't like anything mint or peppermint flavored. He calls it "spicy" and promptly rejects it. He did, however, eat a red hot without complaint. Yeah, I don't understand either. 

The house has been relocated to one of two places: either in the microwave or on top of the fridge. Anywhere else, and TJ uses a stool to access it and picks candy off. The gingerbread house does not currently look like the one you see here--it's missing many candy bits.