Gingerbread houses

Sydney had been bugging me for weeks about making a gingerbread house together. Finally I said we would do it and to sweeten the deal, I let her invite a few friends over to make one as well. I figured if I was already buying candy for one house and cutting out gingerbread pieces...I mind as well make a few extra houses. Of course you can see from the pictures, the houses were very small tract homes. Nothing fancy about these gingerbread houses. They didn't even have two car garages! Although, I think they turned out well, since I had never made gingerbread before until this particular time. I found a good recipe online and it worked out well.
Each girl had a TON of candy and frosting to complete their house. I had royal icing in a decorator bag to pipe wherever or however I was directed! I decided to let them just do exactly what they wanted to their house (and eat as much candy in the process as well). I think they had a blast. We had gumdrops, tiny pink, yellow, and green mints, holiday M&M's, skittles, peppermints, candy canes, cinnamon hots, white chocolate chips, and a few other candies that I don't really know how to describe. I also made small gingerbread people for each house with the leftover scraps and then I made my ginger cookie recipe (so the girls could snack on ginger cookies while making their houses, instead of trying to eat the house).

Here are a few pictures of their creations. Honestly, even though it was a bit of work the night before...I might have to start this tradition because I really did have fun designing the houses, cutting out the pieces and icing them together. Plus it was worth the look on Sydney's face when she came home from school and saw all the houses ready to decorate! Sydney loves doing creative activities and this one was fun because she was able to do it all by herself.