Gingerbread Madness

I don't know what happened this year.

Maybe it was the major snowstorm we had last week 

Or maybe it was the new winter candle scent I have that has gone to my head.

Whatever it was...it made me want to do something really festive today.  Something we have never done before as a family.

It's gingerbread house time!

I even went crazy and made the gingerbread myself.  No store bought stuff here.  Only the real stuff baby.

I have to say, I was pretty impressed with myself.  It actually tasted really, really good.

We invited the "Queen of Gingerbread Houses" herself, Grandma Great, to join in the fun.  She has not made them for a few years now, but she used to make beautiful gingerbread houses.  I am so glad she was able to join us for our first ever Ogden Family Gingerbread House Party.  We had so much fun.

Josh had a good time making sure everything tasted okay.  Emma made the cutest little trees.  Abbie and Ellie each did a side of the roof and everything turned out amazing.

 Ta Da!  The finished product.  A little lopsided, but overall not too shabby for our first try.  We even made a little ice skating pond in the back.

I am so proud of these little ladies.  They worked really hard on each of their pieces and it came together really nicely.  Can you tell they are pretty excited about how it turned out?

 I am so glad that we took these pictures when we did.  You see, there is one very important thing that I failed to remember.  I cannot make beautiful food creations.  Maybe some of you remember me talking about my inability to create birthday cakes.  Unfortunately, this bad luck has carried over to my gingerbread house making skills.

After we took the pictures and cleaned up the mess, I looked over and...

let's just say our sweet little gingerbread house was not structurally sound.

I texted a picture to my Grandma and she said. 

"Nothing is perfect.  It has good air conditioning."

Hilarious! 

Yep.  Good air conditioning for sure.

The good news is...we can eat the gingerbread and candy while it is fresh, not when it has sat around for two weeks and gotten stale.  Score!

First ever Ogden Family Gingerbread Party= SUCCESS! :)