Gingerbread Houses

Today was our first day back to school after Christmas. I know that traditional school kids are not back until after the January 2nd, but the kids were asking me about school, so why not? It beats letting them play video games or watch movies all day; they get enough of that already. School went well today with language arts, math, and history. In language arts, the kids are both studying poetry. For math, Princess started division and Spike is working on telling time. As for history, Spike is finishing up his unit on Julius Caesar and the Romans (he learned about Julius Caesar's death today), and Princess is learning about the French Revolution (today she learned about the guillotine and how it played a part....fun, huh?).

I thought I would share with you today something that we did during our Christmas break...gingerbread houses! I had started this project full force. I spent a couple hours making the dough, cutting out pieces (with some help from the big kids), and baking them up. Sprout kept me company while I was doing this, but only because she really liked the cookie dough.

So I had all the pieces ready when we went grocery shopping for the week. I was planning on picking up candy and stuff for the royal icing. But then, at Costco, we saw the gingerbread house kits for 5 dollars, which was half off. I caved when I realized I would be spending more than that on supplies. So we made houses from a kit, and not my elaborate, entirely homemade plans. The kids did have a great time, and that is all that matters with these things, right?

While the big kids decorated their houses, I gave Sprout a couple of gingerbread men and a bag of frosting to squeeze on them. After I showed her that she could decorate the cookies, she promptly bit off one's head. The frosting was squeezed on for the purpose of licking it off, and when that got old, she ate it straight from the bag. No candy had a chance to decorate her gingerbread men. Princess and Spike thought it was hilarious.

Sprout with a mouth full of cookie.
Spike's finished house.
Princess's finished house.