Gingerbread Construction Crew

As many of you know, my girls attend Texas Virtual Academy @ Southwest. For the past two years the school has hosted a Winterland of Gingerbread event.  Last year the girls decided to build houses and began construction  the day before the event.  OH MY!  I went to bed at 11:00 the night before the event thinking that we'd pass on participating that year because we simply could not get the houses to remain standing.  They were collapsing, sliding, breaking, and simply - not working out.  My level of patience was exhausted.  My girls, however, were determined to make it work and continued working after I went to bed.  To my surprise when I woke up the next morning there were two complete gingerbread houses, standing all by themselves.  I'm sure my jaw dropped because I simply didn't realize that my children had it in them to continue until the wee hours of the morning to see the project through,  especially after their repeated discouragement the night before.  Their houses were absolutely adorable last year and they both decided then and there that next year, they'd start much earlier and not be stressed at the last minute. Here are the houses from last year:

Ashley's House:

Blair's House:

Just as they had planned last year, the girls were determine to start early and put more effort into their houses.  The event was on Thursday the 8th and they started the project on Saturday the 4th.  They worked for 5 days, actually more if you consider the searching and planning stage.  First they came up with a design and then constructed their design out of cardboard.  Then they made the gingerbread dough, using the cardboard as a design the cut out their gingerbread house.  Ashley's house was so tall that it would not fit on a cookie sheet.  She had to improvise by cooking on a piece of foil-covered cardboard.  Both of the girls worked so hard to create the their houses and they were both absolutely adorable.  Per grandma's request, we still have the houses gracing our dining room table.  Grandma will be here this weekend and she wants to see the houses, not just photos of them.  ;-)  Here's a few pictures of the process:

Blair's House:

Ashley's House:



It was so much fun and I'm so proud of both of the girls for starting such a huge project and seeing it through to completion again. They both worked so hard. Isn't it amazing how much they improved over the course of a year?