Gingerbread Houses

For the first time, we decided to make Gingerbread Houses this year. Having never done it before, Coeli allocated 30 minutes toward this project. She even ran it by a certain sister of her's (Cheryl - I won't mention you here) and received validation that we should just get it done. Never mind the fact that it was 45 minutes before hard bedtime - meaning in bed, lights out and hopefully, asleep). Two and a half hours later, the masterpieces were complete! Can you just imagine Coeli's patience and "fun mom" levels at that point?! That didn't even include a Kieran factor, since she was in bed already! Below is Addison and her house. We love this pictures as it so perfectly depicts our Addie Cat. Eating candy the whole way through, Addie actually designed a well-planned decoration scheme, right down to the cute smiley face instead of a window on the lower right.Also in perfect personality form, Logan chose to copy the design on the box, right down to the colors (see completed picture at end). You can only imagine the pain-staking time it took to 1) look at the box, 2) place one candy, 3) look at the box, 4) place one candy, etc., etc., etc.!!!Finally, below was the finished product, including very tough frosting EVERYWHERE! This would not be as much of a challenge had it not been made with egg whites, to which Kieran is highly allergic. All tolled, 4 1/2 hours later, with a clean kitchen and well past Coeli's bedtime, the project was truly complete. Note to self - put it on the calendar next year as an all-day block out, pray for good weather so it can be done outside, and use regular frosting (isn't there some that have sprinkles mixed in it? Maybe that will suffice as decorations, too?)