this is the house that Jack built

Jack is a sweet little boy in the twins' kindergarten class who really had fun this morning eating M&Ms decorating his gingerbread house.  However, I think my kids having fun decorating their own gingerbread houses are equally as cute.  Just not in a "nursery rhyme line makes a catchy blog title" sort of way.

So, here is the house that Gretchen built...... and, Gretchen working on it.  Mike Holmes would be proud.

Here is the house that Carl built. 

Here are the houses that I built!

I did have a little help from the Elf. 

He was not as helpful in the transporting phase....

At school, ready to decorate with the kindergarten class this morning....

The whole class was so focused and really creative.  Look below at this scene next to one little guy's house.  He told me, "It is a nativity.  See, Baby Jesus laying down?  And Mary and Joesph and 2 Wise Men."   I was unable to find out where Wise Man #3 was at the time.  Possibly off getting an insulin shot. 

Carl ate marshmallows and the gummy bear he was given...  not the 3rd Wise Man, fear not, for behold, I saw him get the bear from the bag Charlie's mom was holding.  He wanted only yellow gumdrops.  When he decided to make a sidewalk, he picked Skittles and M&Ms.  Each of those candies is labeled with a single letter from it's name, of course.  "Is "sm" a blend?"  I was sure than when I told him yes it was that he was going to do his pattern in SM SM SM, but he stuck mainly to the M&Ms.  He also did a lot of socializing.  He didn't spend as much time decorating as the others did, so he wandered around talking to his friends and checking out their houses like a little Gingerbread Village Mayor.

Gretchen was covered in that icing.  Oh, I made all of that, too.*   The teacher requested it in the baggies.  It was actually (or as Carl would say, 'accidentally'.  He substitutes accidentally for actually all the time.  It's too cute to correct.) cleaner than I expected for most of the kids.  "Most" being the key word.  One of the Colins did have a sleeve coating incident and then my kid was just covered.  Extreme Gingerbread decorating!!!  She didn't care, she was having too much fun building and making sure her building supplies were up to code.  Most contractors and carpenters taste their supplies, right? 

The teachers got a nice break while parent volunteers helped the kids with this project.  Then, we lined the kids up and sent them back to the classroom completely hyped up on candy.  At least the next activity on their schedule was snack/outside play.  It is still nice enough here that they eat snack outside on the picnic tables every day and then have their first recess of the day.  So, they did get to run off that sugar high.

It was fun to get to visit with the other moms, too.  This class has some really great families in it!


*  icing recipe
If you ever have to make 21 gingerbread houses, you will need some serious icing.  I ended up making 8 batches of this, but the kids have quite a bit in their baggies.  (Well, I made 4 double batches... I only spent 40 minutes with my mixer, not 80 minutes mixing it up.  My mixer was getting a bit tired - had a hot smell by the end of about batch #3.)


1 box confectioner's sugar (1 lb)
4 room temp egg whites
1 tsp cream tartar

beat for 7-10 minutes until peaks form