Happy Holidays!

I am more than a little behind in logging our holiday fun!  Of course, my intention was to chronicle them as we went but that didn't happen :)  Anyway... We have a  lot of fun going through Lisa Welchel's book The ADVENTure of Christmas.  We have enjoyed learning about the symbolism of the Christmas tree, the star, Christmas lights & candy canes.  It's been great helping the kids make spiritual connections to the everyday things they see during the holiday season.

One of the highlights of our crafting/baking this year was a gingerbread house.  We did one a couple of years ago and Kaden has been asking to do another ever since (I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with all the candy involved:).  Anyway, rather than buying a pre-fab this year we did full-on construction- well, sort of.  I borrowed a mold from a friend of mine- it's from Pampered Chef but I don't think it's available any longer :(  It came complete with a recipe that you press into the stoneware mold & bake.  You do that twice and this is what you get...

It also comes with a recipe for some super-sticky royal icing but this year I opted to let Pillsbury do the work.  It worked fine.  We started our project when Cam was napping but he joined in making his own "cone-ifer" for our winter wonderland scene when he got up..

Daddy helped a little with the icing

And now, onto the actual construction phase...

Icing is YUMMY!

Ta-da!  The finished product!

A beautiful winter scene if I do say so myself.  And most importantly, we had a blast!!