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. 

house party

in lieu of a more elaborate christmas party, the two kindergarten classes at the bean's school get together  during the week before winter break to make and decorate gingerbread houses.  parents and grandparents and anyone else who wants to come are invited to come and help out, and so i hit up my mom to see if she might be able to head up to join us.  happily, her calendar was open.

now because i am me, i decided that i wanted to make her something fun to wear for the party.  i'd seen some cute gingerbread man-themed fabric at joann's, but when i went back to get some it was nowhere to be found.  of course.  but it was totally okay, because i found another baking-related design that i liked better:

a quick perusal of pinterest turned up an easy-looking tutorial for a cute little suspender skirt, and while the bean was at school i got to work.  it'd been a while since i'd done anything with pleats, but it's rather like riding a bicycle.

while i thought the whole thing turned out really well, my favorite part was the little gingerbread man buttons.  i snagged the very last two in the store.  and i was super excited to finally make something that required me to figure out how to use my machine to make buttonholes.  i even managed to get it to sew the buttons on!  so awesome.  i'm never hand-sewing buttons again.

when she got home from school, it wasn't very hard to get her to try it on and model it for me.

later after she went to bed, i decided that she needed a festive headband to wear.  my friend winnie had posted a picture of a plethora of beautifully handmade flowered headbands and was kind enough to share the links to the tutorials she'd used.  i settled on this one and started cutting out the circles of felt.

after a little work with my trusty hot glue gun, i had this:

i attached it to one of the bean's headbands and tried it on.  hot damn, this thing is huge.  i figured if it was this large on my head, it would be ridiculous on her.

the next morning, we were both excited for her to get dressed and ready for the party.

the teen and i had volunteered to arrive a little early to help get things set up, and with lots of hands to work with, the tables were all ready for the kids well before they arrived to get started.

i'd never done this before, but it was genius.  two milk cartons taped together made a perfect foundation for the graham crackers to form the house.

each kid had been assigned the task of bringing in a can of white frosting, and they used it to slather the milk cartons all over to glue the walls and roof on.

i told you the flower was as big as her head.  so awesome.

the bean is most definitely her father's daughter.  she was focused and in the zone as she worked on creating a "log cabin" with pretzel sticks.  she worked quickly and efficiently, adjusting the sticks to align perfectly, and it was really fun to watch.

i sent this picture to the hub and the ILs and captioned it "bet you can't guess which one is hers."  her father was appropriately proud of her masterpiece and chuckled at how very like him she is.

after getting cleaned up, we all took the opportunity to snap some pictures with the architect.

with her pride and joy.