Gingerbread Castle

Steve decided that he wanted to build a Gingerbread house with Ella this year. He has never made one before, and I, as the experienced gingerbread-house maker, told him there are kits you buy to build them and put them together - you just assemble the pieces of gingerbread, follow the instructions and then decorate it, and voila - you've got an excellent gingerbread house!

Steve did not like that idea and said there was no way they were going to make it from a kit, instead they were going to make the whole thing from scratch. I thought it seemed a little overly ambitious, but who am I to stand in the way of a Christmas project between a daddy and his daughter? So, he did his research, bought the ingredients and on Friday night kicked off Gingerbread Weekend 2010!

The first night they made all the gingerbread dough and put in the fridge overnight. On Saturday they measured and cut all the pieces and then baked the gingerbread.

Here is one of the castle walls (did I mention this was no simple house but instead is Santa's castle?)


On Saturday night we put together 3 walls and the support beams for the roof (yes, that is right, there were support beams for this castle...). Here they are mixing the frosting.



On Sunday after church we finished putting it together and then let it sit for a few hours. After dinner on Sunday it was time to decorate! Ella liked to smear icing and coconut all around, and then eat as much candy as she possibly could.

Notice she is licking her fingers, a VERY common theme of the weekend!




I love this little snowman out front


Sign for Santa, so he knows that it's his castle


Ta-da!



The architects and their finished product!!


This morning she got right to work playing with the castle, here she is putting her dinosaur inside. She loves her castle!