Gingerbread houses & Santa cookies

Not that my kids need any help finding things to scuffle over-they are normal after all, but always the problem when making our gingerbread house is who gets to put what on where and eat which leftover candy.  That's why I just beamed when I found a solution this year!

It's a village-a gingerbread village!  With five house to decorate...no fighting!  Yay!!  We divided all the candy equally, I glued (because you cannot call that stuff frosting) the walls together & they started working away, creating their little masterpieces and asking frequently if they got to eat the leftovers.  Which was okay, by the way...as long as they put SOME of the candy on the house!

 I love the rows of gumdrops on the rooftops...

Jack had a little different approach...he may or may not have been rationing the candy.  "What's the minimum I can put on here?"

Lily tried hard...she did her very best and had a good time chatting about it all.  She did get a lot of frosting  on her sleeves, her hand (licking took care of that problem!) and even her hair, if you look closely at the picture.  Hers was a totally random approach, whereas the big kids did more patterns.

But she did still put the gumdrops on the rooftop-must be where they are meant to go!

And, their finished work...

As for the two extras...I got to decorate those!

A day later and we were at it again...this time we had to make sure Santa didn't leave our house with a rumbly tummy.  Whipped up some sugar cookies & Camryn & Bryson helped with the decorating.  This was quite a hoot, watching them & seeing their different personalities...they all decorated one cookie & immediately ate it, declaring them Santa-worthy...then they settled in to churn out the cookies.

Jack still needs to work on the philosophy of all in moderation. 

Camryn's age was apparent as she decorated the cookies...some of hers were so creative & well done they looked almost professional!  She had lots of colors and ideas and details.

Macy's cookies had stories to go with them...these were my favorite.  They are a bride & groom (who thinks of that?)...they even have a bouquet of flowers and a lapel flower!  I just couldn't quit grinning when I looked at them, so happy, so in love...ahhhh....Haha!!  These were the ones that Santa got to eat as well.

Jack's...well, Jack's were...Jack-like.   He's such an interesting little boy!  I just love him and all his complexities.

Bryson's also had stories to go with them, but more humorous as is that little boy-my favorite that he made, the "angry eyes" gingerbread man.   What a hoot!

I managed to sneak a few away to decorate myself.

(there weren't enough stockings left by the time I got ahold of them to make all the kids one, so I just did one in honor of Tucker)