I blogged a bit before about our intent to build a gingerbread house as a homeschooling project this week, then enter it into our city’s annual competition.  Honestly, we did this with zero expectation of award;  our desire was just to participate.

There were three categories — one for kids 12 & under, one for teens and adults, and one for a group.  I entered ours into the group category.

I did most of the icing, and I stood up the walls, but the boys did virtually all of the rest of it.  They sketched out ideas, read books on gingerbread house-making, they chose the template, they helped make the dough and roll it out, they made decorating design decisions, the did most of the decorating…  It really was a group effort.  My inner sometimes-perfectionist threatened to rear its head and take over all the layout and correct a gloppy mistake, but for the most part, I let the boys’ ideas trump mine, and I let their glops alone.

We were planning on attending our city’s tree-lighting and assorted festivities (including ribbon-awarding) last night anyways…  but when someone from the city called to let me know we’d won first place, I knew we had to get there.  It was a bummer, because my hubby was running late, heading home after working for part of the day in a city 40 miles away…  so we ended up running up literally just as they were announcing our names.  So, the boys didn’t really get that tension/excitement buildup that comes from anxiously waiting to see if your name is called.  (I hadn’t told them that we won.)

Still, it ended up being a fantastic night…   The ribbon is now quite rumpled from the boys (and Audrey) admiring it.

The house is gluten-free, dairy-free (GFCF), nut-free and peanut-free.  I used a cookie recipe I devised, royal icing, and candy bought from Walgreen’s.

Here’s the gingerbread house progression:

Before:

Cutting out the templates:

Audrey supervised:

Cutting out the dough:

The bare house, assembled:

Ethan adds some candy:

I ice some windows:

Knowing that my spelling is an issue of pride, and to keep me humble about both that, and about the house, God saw to it that, in a gingerbread-induced stupor, I misspelled “allergen.”

The house is done!

We’re all pleased:

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