Gingerbread contest

Our local library has a gingerbread house contest every year. The only rules are that the creations have to be made by a family and EVERYONE has to help. We entered it a few years back. The kids had so much fun (and they won) that every year since, they've been begging to do it again.

We made it on Friday and Saturday. I made up the dough, Brett took care of design and construction, and the kids provided the ideas and accessorized it. We all stayed up way too late working on it. The next morning some friends came over to help us work on the decoration part. They got as excited as the kids and helped make it look way better than I would have had energy for.

I'm not sure this will be and every year tradition, but it was really fun! We've made individual gram cracker houses before and the kids do enjoy it... but there is something special about making something big and wonderful TOGETHER. My friend made just the front of the house for her kids to decorate. I thought that was a fun idea. Maybe that'll be next year's project.