gingerbread house PARTY!

we've done gingerbread houses a few times and its always such a big hit with the kids... but for whatever reason (lack of patience being the number one reason), i am usually angry at the kids and get so frustrated that something that should be a holly, jolly experience is tarnished by my yells. so i decided to switch things up this year! my plan was to have a gingerbread house decorating party with friends over. having friends was my insurance to keep me from being mean and grumpy. and you know what? it totally worked!

i made all the houses earlier in the day on monday and it was pretty painless since i hot glued the graham crackers together instead of using royal icing. that really cut back on frustration and bad words. i just made sure to tell the kids not to eat their actual houses :)

luckily for me, chris was post call monday and actually got the day off, which is pretty unheard of these days. he was kind enough to take pictures so i could make frosting, deal with frosting spills and whatever else came our way. he was a huge help!

each kid was able to invite a friend. 

ellie invited her bff anna. anna's little sister, kate, also came because she is a good friend of ellie's too and it just seemed like the right thing to do with so many boys in the house.

charlie invited his buddy from church named christopher.

he is probably the sweetest, most polite 6 year old you'll ever meet, saying things like "excuse me, but you could you please pass me the marshmallows?"

and he brought his magnifying glass and inspected each stage of the decorating process.

this is anna

this is kate

jack invited his friend ahmed, who is always making everyone crack up!

there was so much candy, both on the kid's houses and in the kid's mouths, like it should be!

i think this is owen's idea of heaven

jack has been friends with ahmed for a few years now. before thanksgiving his mom, Beena, invited our family to have dinner with them at our local Indian restaurant called R&R curry. it was so, so enjoyable and we have loved getting to know them both better. 

very grateful our kids have such good friends with kind, amazing families with good values.

after decorating houses, the kids hung out playing basketball and soccer with chris, doing magic tricks, and playing chess. everyone had a great time, even mom and dad! and after everyone left, we through stuff in the garbage, wiped off the table and counters and went out to dinner. it was great!

and just because its so cute, here is a video chris caught of jack while he was waiting for Ahmed to arrive. we are starting a little collection of these moments with jack and they are the best!

MVI_0396 from Lisa Brower on Vimeo.