A creative/competitive tradition

We have lots of different Christmas traditions but I think our favorite creative outlet of the season is always our gingerbread houses. Hunter makes lists of what he wants to create. Avery talks about all the different candy choices in length. I vie to beat Deke and try to think of an original idea sure to blow his socks off. Deke plans secretly in his head how to remain the champion. Every year we end up doing the houses with different people which is really fun and it mixes up who you get to work with. Last year the Grant's made houses with us and I am pretty sure that Dylann and I won for the best graham cracker barn ever constructed. This year Deke's parents came over to make the houses with us. I was sooooo excited to be partnered with Nalene to melt our creative crafting energies. The only thing that could hinder us would be our need to constantly be visiting with each other. When she arrived with a book and magazine pages prepared I knew instantly that our house was going to rock. Watch out Deke I'm coming for you. Deke and Hunter were teamed up while Avery worked with Grandpa. Avery decided that she wanted to make a Tangled tower, Hunter and Deke worked secretly on their project. Nalene and I decided to make a ranch style house with a wrap-around porch. Our progress got delayed however halfway through when I had to stop and feed Emma so we fell a little behind. We spent close to an hour working on them and it was really fun. It is always interesting to work in pairs and combine ideas to come up with new and inventive things. Here is Grandpa and Avery's Tangled tower. Ave did so much better this year with actually trying to help build. Last year all she did was watch Kerry construct the house, eat candy and lick the frosting off of her fingers. We had to really monitor her candy eating. However every time I turned around she was putting more candy in her mouth. Deke and I kept telling her no more but she kept sneaking some. I love the star shaped marshmallows around the top of the tower. Grandpa did a great job helping with it even though he had no idea what Tangled was other than Ave's sort of vague explanation. My favorite part of the tower however is this: I laughed so hard when I saw that Dave had taken some pull and peel licorice and made Rapunzel hair for one of the gummy bears. It was just what Avery had wanted. It was awesome. Deke and Hunter had made a Fortress. Let me go back, actually according to Hunter its full name was the Fortress of Cardinal Secrets. It definitely looks like a Fortress especially with its rows of gummy guards up top. Hunter added a little pile of freshly caught fish in one corner and even had one roasting over and open fish on the other side. He came up with that all by himself which I thought was very clever. Just when I thought it looked a little simplistic for Deke, then they turned it around to reveal rooms inside that Hunter had "interior decorated." There was four rooms inside that could be filled with stuff. Sweet. Nalene and I found that a wrap-around porch is not easy as it looks but I think it still turned out really cute. It is probably my favorite part of our house. Nalene had brought frosting bags and tips and so we were able to have time to do a little work on the roof. I definitely liked the idea of using frosting bags and think we will incorporate it again next year. I loved being able to make window panes with it. My other favorite thing about our house is this little chair that Nalene made to go out front. Is is adorable. Have I mentioned that my partner was awesome? Throw in a nice little fence and some snowmen marshmallows going for a sleigh ride and your golden. We actually didn't have time to do the judging and headed off to temple lights so there is no official consensus as to who won. Then a few days later I think that decision was clear. We had so much left over candy I told the kids we could do another house during the week. We decided to attempt a graham cracker ship. This was sooooooo much fun. We first built the ship and then gave the deck a gummy crew complete with little mops to "swab the deck." We added a bowsprit and cannons on the side. Railings to the top complete with a gummy captain at the wheel. I don't know if you can see it but I bit his leg off and shoved a pretzel in it so he had a peg leg as all good captains should. Someone was walking the plank and another sailor was working up in the sails that we made out of straws, Ritz and wax paper. I love the skull and crossbones that Hunter drew. We worked for over an hour on it and the kids were so cute they were sooooo excited. That night when Deke got home he was both surprised and impressed. He agreed it was the clear winner. :) So much fun, we all look forward to this every year. By the way a side note on the little candy eater of the bunch. You remember when you were a kid and your parents would tell you if you ate too much candy you would get sick but then you never actually did so you figured they just made that up. We tried to tell her. Literally two seconds after walking in the door from the temple lights Avery announced her tummy hurt and then threw up all over the floor. "Daddy my tummy really hurts" she told him. We reiterated again the importance of moderation in sugar consumption and I think she now definitely understands. Poor Ave.