Gingerbread 101

Last year I had a temporary lapse of sanity and planned a gingerbread decorating party for Josie and about 20 of her little friends.

The candy coated, frosting laden party ended up being a huge success and a ton of fun.  Which of course means we decided to make it a yearly event.

The past two weeks have been nutso around here, but that didn't stop me from breaking out my glue gun and whipping up 25 graham cracker houses.

Yup, I hot glued those bad boys together.

Last year I was all fancy and melted sugar to use as our glue.  It worked OK, but was a pain in the butt and didn't hold up very well.

This year I decided to just tell the little elves to not eat the house and do it with hot glue.  I also glued them down to the cardboard to help keep them from sliding around.  It worked perfect.

I was SO glad my Mom was here to help with our little Rudolf who wasn't feeling totally back to normal from his procedure.

I had each mom bring either a candy to share or a can of frosting.

We ended up with enough candy to cover next year's party but almost didn't have enough frosting.  If you have one of these shindigs, double up on frosting and slow your roll on the candy.

I made goody bags filled with leftover Halloween candy.

I figured kids don't care if candy is old and I had to get the junk out of my house!

We put out cookies, peppermint brownies, chocolate covered marshmallows, and cupcakes.

Oh, and chips to counteract all the sugar.

The head elf was really excited!

Gabe was certain all the candy was set out for him! 

This party really is so simple.

The only prep work is making the houses and laying out table clothes and candy.

Once everyone was here, we handed out the houses and the kids got to work.

Each mom helps there own kids and even though the potential for insane messes is very present, they don't happen.

When the houses are done, we set them up to dry and let the kids run off some of the sugar overdose.

Cleaning up is as simple as rolling up the table clothes to throw away and sweeping the floor!