Gingerbread houses

We saved decorating our gingerbread houses until winter break started.  N2 were very excited to decorate them and asked almost everyday when we were going to decorate them.  It was very interesting to watch them decorate their houses.  One of my children is much more methodical and followed a pattern whereas the other one is much more random.  I bet you can guess which one is which. :)  It was also interesting to see how they tried to negotiate with each other to get more of one type of candy.  They wanted the other one to trade with them but weren't always willing to trade when the other one asked.

Notes to remember: I made one batch of royal icing to put together the houses and for them to put the candy on the house and it was just enough.  Natalie probably could have used a little more at the end but she ran out so she was done.  I put all the icing in one piping bag and they shared it.  It worked fairly well but I did put most of the icing on Noah's roof for him so that he had lines of icing and just had to put candy on.  That worked really well.  Natalie put one piece on at a time.

For future reference I need to remember to use less flour and bake for less time since my pieces were all burned.  Oh well, it's not like they eat that much of the house anyways.  I bought 4 boxes of candy-Mike and Ike sours (not too many in the package-not worth it), Dots (they didn't use too many of these), snowcaps (used most of them up), and sweet tarts (used all of these up-need more like this). We also had some gum drops, candy corn (which they used as icicles), and rainbow Airhead squares.  They wanted gingerbread people but I didn't end up making any.  Also, keep the door pieces that I cut out.  Natalie wanted her door.