Gingerbread (Graham Cracker) Houses

Last night we finally made the gingerbread houses we have been talking about since the beginning of the month. Things kept coming up before and we never had a chance to do them. So last night we planned it and made it happen. We always seem to have TONS of candy and things in our house so I didn't have to purchase any extra for the houses. We were going to make icing, but I never found a recipe I liked and in the end decided it would just be WAY easier to buy a container of white icing. We like using graham crackers to make our houses. This is either the 2nd or 3rd year we have used graham crackers.

Allison wanted to make the tallest one. She had it bigger than this even at one point, but it wasn't stable and it quickly fell. She was more focus on height than candy. In the front of this picture you can see a few strangely shaped and colored jelly beans. She used them to make a fire. On the right side of the house in this picture, she made a door that is open, but you can't really tell in this picture. She was very creative.

Then there was Mathew...he went for the candy as soon as he could. In fact he did it too soon. We had to take off some because there was no icing even on it. Then he got upset because he had made a small flat roofed house that wasn't very big and he didn't have room to put more candy. So I helped him rig up more of a roof and iced it so he could put TONS more candy on it. We finally had to put a stop to his using candy. He had ever inch of the house covered. He had lots of fun using the candy (and of course eating some).

I enjoy watching the kids make their houses. This year was especially fun because Allison had her own ideas and Mathew had his own creativity. Every year that the kids have done their own, we do one more. I let Michael do the building and beginning decorating and then I add some touches to it. I always forget how much fun we can have with different creative building and decorating ideas.