Making a Gingerbread House

Chris, John, and Mary took an impromptu jaunt to Atlanta for 48 hours to enjoy seeing some other family members who had come into town. I ended up having such mixed feelings about it! My pregnancy hormones are getting just a wee bit haywire. When the children are here, my mommying instinct for the new baby to be born makes me want to focus on the new baby--so I want the big kids to give me PEACE AND QUIET. But when they went away and gave me peace and quiet, my mommying instinct for my big "babies" went into overdrive and I wanted them BACK IN MY NEST. Therefore, it was a couple days of tearful moments on my part. 

On the bright side, Margaret basked in the sunshine of my full attention. She was my little pal the whole time. The house was cleaned and then it remained perfectly clean because there were not two whirling dervishes strewing toys everywhere they go. I puttered around throwing away clutter. Instead of washing two machine loads of dishes per day, I washed one (small) load over the course of two days. And I got to go visit a girlfriend and just chat, so that was quite fun!

When the children came home, we made a gingerbread house. I had decided to be Miss Suzy Homemaker and bake the gingerbread myself: the flavor is okay, the dough is way too thick, and I didn't have a pattern so I just sort of guessed good shapes to cut out and you can imagine how well they fit together.

I also tried my hand at using Royal Icing for the first time. Each time I searched for "frosting to use with gingerbread houses," Royal Icing was always what popped up. Well, there must be a technique to it because it was a mess! It ran all over the place, it didn't hold together, and then it had to dry for a long time (ideally overnight) before it becomes this supposedly rock hard gingerbread house glue. So I sat there, just holding the house pieces together, trying not to move or breathe. It was a comedy of errors.

In the end, I couldn't manage the triangular pieces or a slanting roof as planned, so I made a flat-roof kind of shack. Thankfully, the children are still young enough to have thought it was pretty fun. Remind me next year to buy a gingerbread house kit!

Now my bunchkins are home safe (with all their noise and mess), Chris has only one more short business trip before the baby is expected, and I can further hole up in my nest!