Candy Houses

So hard not to eat all that candy...

One of our annual Christmas activity is making gingerbread houses. Although, the way we do it there is not gingerbread involved, just an awful lot of candy so maybe we should start calling them candy houses.

Addison, Jenna & Azia decorate their houses

 When we were little my mom always made these houses with us every year and now it's one of my kids favorite holiday projects. It's hard to see how being set free with a table full of candy to do with whatever you'd like couldn't become pretty popular.

I pre-made the little kids houses since I use melted sugar as glue-- I've never been successful at just using frosting like some people do. Israel was in charge of his own architecture and when he was all done, it basically looked like a cake. (He frosted it pink for some reason.)

We made them after school on Friday so we had a whole gang of kids working on them.

Azia & Jenna: all the kids were very proud of their houses and wanted their pictures taken with them after they were done.

Lex wanted his picture taken too. ("Picture me, Mom! Picture me!") Of course he didn't have a house because he couldn't stop eating the candy long enough to get any on the house and then he just started licking all the frosting off. He also changed his mind about the picture almost before I even got there with the camera. I took one and then he was off and running again.

The eating was as much fun as the decorating and many of the kids didn't get done with the first before they started on the second.

Sage and Lex "guarding" the finished houses. Theirs where already empty of candy when they put them up there and pieces off the others disappeared whenever no on was looking.

One of these years soon we're going to try actual gingerbread houses. At least half of my kids could probably do pretty well. Maybe next year. We always have so many things going on during the holiday season it's hard to decided which projects to fit in.