Saturday, December 18, 2010

{Advent Action} Day 7






7 Days Until Christmas

Today's activity: "make gingerbread houses"





When I first thought of doing this activity with the boys, I knew I wanted to use graham crackers instead of making real gingerbread or buying one of those fancy kits. I especially wanted to use graham crackers because there's a package in the pantry that I don't even know how old it is. :) And then I happened upon this post by Ashley at Under the Sycamore, and found her ingenious idea of using hot glue to keep the cracker pieces together - b.r.i.l.l.i.a.n.t!

Now obviously, I know then that eating our gingerbread neighborhood is out of the question, but we've never made these before, so my boys don't know the difference!

The Before.
A little house for each of us.

I assisted Reed with the frosting.

Drew knocked it out all by himself.

Our candy fare included all things we already had - we even raided what's left of the Halloween stash. It included M&Ms, chocolate chunks, chocolate kisses, candy canes, smarties, marshmallows, gumdrops, gummy lifesavers and an assortment of sprinkles.

After covering his house in frosting, I showed Reed how to put the candy on. To my surprise, he caught on right away. He was quite thrilled about it - each time he put a piece of candy on, he gave a little giggle of delight. He got a few more pieces on, and then he discovered, "Hey, this is candy! Let's eat it!!!" and proceeded to remove all of the candy from his house...

...and then started sneaking it off of my house, too!

Definitely a shirtless activity. We did this mid-morning, and both boys went straight to the bath when we were done. Reed had frosting in his hair, ear, and down his back.

Drew's completed house. Didn't he do marvelously?!

The After.
Our gingerbread village.
You'll notice the boys decorated the house and the yard.


This was a fantastic project for all of us to do together. The boys absolutely loved it, and we all had a wonderful time. I'd have to say it has been our favorite Advent activity...so far!


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