Gingerbread Houses

I have never before made from-scratch gingerbread houses, so I decided this was going to be the year. Last night we made the dough and after the kids when to bed I meticulously cut out the shapes and then baked them. This morning Kate and James were so excited to put them together! Earlier this month we made gingerbread men and James insisted on giving each one a belly button by poking his finger in the middle. This morning I had a really hard time convincing him that the house pieces did NOT need belly buttons. Fortunately only one pieces ended up with a belly button. 

The frosting recipe I used just about drove me crazy. It was way too thick and when I tried to squish it through a piping bag Ziploc it ended up squishing out the side. Frustrated I decided to hot glue everything together. Did you know that hot glue doesn't stick to gingerbread?? Surprise, surprise. Finally I tried an different recipe and it turned out just lovely.

While decorating Kate had a 'one for me, one for the house' method.  As you can see, her mouth was full most of the time she was decorating.

 This is how it turned out. I was really impressed! She did most of it by herself. I just helped by putting the frosting where she wanted it to go and she did the rest.

 James, on the other hand, had a 'one for me, one for me, one for me' method of decorating and spent most of the time just eating all the sweets that were in front of him. He didn't mind at all when I took over decorating. This is how it turned out.