The FEMA sponsored gingerbread house

Last year we made a gingerbread train with Spencer on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

We all had a lot of fun doing it and although we ended up tossing the whole thing into the garbage in January we still thought it would be fun to make it a tradition.

We went with the house this year.

We finished right around the time that Spencer got bored with the activity.

He asked me to take pictures of him leaving the room.

Michael and I were just starting to congratulate each other on a job well done when the roof started separating and all the candy on top fell in. 

Then it really became a disaster.  So disastrous that there are no pictures because I don't have that many hands.

After the roof separated, the walls caved in.   So basically we had 6 pieces of fully decorated house that were dripping with thick slabs of icing, and nothing holding them together. 

Spencer came back (no doubt our screams and yelps peaked his interest) and started licking the icing from all of the candy that was falling off.

We rallied all of our resources (resources being our hands, the bag of icing and a bunch of bowls) and managed to put the house back together.  Then we let it sit, propped up (and with a large pot to keep the bowls from sliding), for about an hour while the icing dried.

Then we used more icing and some powdered sugar to cover the damage.

The whole experience was much more exasperating and much more hilarious than I have portrayed here.

This gingerbread house is covered in Spencer's saliva and general hand bacteria.  It, like the train, will be going straight in to the trash come December 26th. 

And then, an entire year will go by and we'll forget what a pain in the a** it was and we'll build another one.  And Elliott will help!  And hopefully not get a mouth full of icing!