candyland under construction

just before christmas, we were lucky enough to coordinate schedules to have the bean's dance pals over for a gingerbread house decorating party. and because i am either a glutton for punishment or a cheap ass tightwad, i refused to buy those premade kits. oh no, i had to make the gingerbread pieces and royal icing "glue" from scratch. why do i do this crap to myself?

at least i had this sweet set of cookie cutters to use, instead of having to hand-cut the pieces. 

because two of the girls have little sisters who were joining the party, i thought it would be fun to make them mini houses of their own to decorate. this cutter was absolutely perfect for this purpose. 

but when it came time to assemble those things, i found myself contemplating heading to michaels to buy the damn kits. trying to glue the pieces together was the biggest pain in my ass since - hell, i don't even know when. 

while i waited for the foundations to dry a bit before adding the roof pieces, i decided that the houses needed a tree. we've had a pack of sugar cones for ages that nobody likes (and of course, i was too cheap to just toss), along with a tub of cotton candy-flavored frosting i'd bought on clearance at target. i scooped some out, added some green dye, spread it on and decorated with mini m&ms. 

after a lot of cussing and reassembling (i swear, each of those houses fell apart at least once), i finally got them done. 

we'd been gathering all sorts of fun supplies for the party, and i put it all into bowls and trays and set everything out on the buffet. 

i'd also decided that the girls needed personalized aprons, and placed one on each chair. for the moms, i put out some in-n-out aprons we had sitting around. 

the hub made a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up some snacks, and these got set out in the kitchen. 

as the girls arrived, they made a beeline for the bean's room to play. it's funny, but the only time most of her toys get played with is when she has friends over. while they had a blast just being together, the moms and i had a great time catching up with each other. it'd been awhile since we'd all been together, so it was nice to just chat and relax. 

when it was time to get down to business, everyone really got into it. 

they all did a pretty fantastic job with their little project.

cute, right?  and afterwards, we got the girls to pose for a group photo (with a photobomber in the back).

much later, the bean happily helped me clean up. amazingly, despite the number of friends we had over and the crazy amounts of sprinkles we all used, there wasn't much to sweep up. 

the next day, the fun continued with our friends lilcee and mini cee. i don't know why, but we didn't take any pictures. maybe because we were so busy helping the girls decorate. i finally got to cover a roof with "shingles."

doing the houses was a ton of fun, and i'm glad we were able to have our friends over to play. but next year...we're doing cookies. i am definitely a horrible architect.