For the past three years we have made a gingerbread house on the Monday after Halloween using all the candy we collected. In case you have any Halloween candy still sitting around here are the step by step directions.
Step 1 - Start building the house out of cardboard and shoe boxes while the kids are eating dinner, your husband is working late and won't be home anytime soon, your kitchen is a mess and you have been up since 2:00 a.m.
Step 1 - Start building the house out of cardboard and shoe boxes while the kids are eating dinner, your husband is working late and won't be home anytime soon, your kitchen is a mess and you have been up since 2:00 a.m.
Step 2 - While you continue to scavenge the real house for cardboard house materials, put the kids to work sorting candy into paper bowls that are leftover from making a Lego costume.
Step 3 - After 15 minutes of watching her stuff her face with every type of candy in sight, send the 2 year old upstairs to watch Toy Story.
Step 4 - Finish up the cardboard house (which you purposely made smaller than last year's so you can get done quicker) and have your kids tell you, "Mom, it looks like a church!"
Step 5 - While the sorting and unwrapping continues, make the frosting that is more like glue and realize that you only have enough powdered sugar for one batch so you tell the kids not to eat it (but they do anyway).
Step 6 - Ask your 10 year old to dig out some Christmas CDs and the only one she can find is a CD mix your husband made years ago. Make sure the CD is scratched and the only song it will play is Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song.
Step 7 - Start decorating and try to step back and let your kids do it themselves, no matter how it is turning out.
Step 8 - Speed the process along by slapping Starbursts on the chimney.
Step 9 - Step back and admire the masterpiece your children have made for the third year in a row, rejoice in the fact that most of the Halloween candy is gone and the kids had fun getting rid of it and watch your children throw the leftovers away because they have eaten so much in the whole process that they are sick.
Step 10 - Send the kids to the bathroom to chisel the frosting off their faces and brush their teeth, sweep this up off your floor and realize that it wasn't the perfect evening you had hoped for but the tradition does live on for another year.
10 comments:
What an awesome idead. We'll have to start that tradition once Aaron's old enough to trick-or-treat. The houses look great!
that's awesome~! we'll have to try that next year....we just donated all our candy to the primary:)
I love this post!! Curtis told me how excited he was to make this house out of his Halloween candy so good job for keeping it going even though it wasn't ideal for you. I am sure they still loved it! Why on earth were you up at 2 am, by the way?
Love it!!
You are a trooper! I'd be more inclined to say "I'm tired, too much work, too much mess!" I'm sure the kids had a great time decorating the "church!"
Looks awesome!
I think this is wonderful tradition! What a cute house and what a fun Mom!
What a great idea! I wonder what else we could make out of candy....
I love the activity and how you described it! Too funny!
Curtis told us about this in Primary, he sounded very excited about doing it! Also he shared with us an important lesson that he is more important to you than your blog. So great job keeping the kids #1 even though it isn't always easy! We love him in our primary class, he always keeps our class interesting!!
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