The Gingerbread House That Jack Built

Who's Jack?  I dunno, but apparently he built a house once in a lengthy poem...

Our family night in December is often centered around decorating Gingerbread houses that were cooked and assembled by Grandma Marlene.

This year was no different.

In attendance were Aunt Doris, Aunt Dianne, Grandma Schmitz, cousins Zoe, Jonah and Samuel as well as Caleb, Robby, Mom and dear ol' Dad.

Dad cooked supper (poorly, I might add) and took pictures while the teams assembled and laid out their respective plans of attack for accomplishing their task.

The teams were Dianne/Robby, Doris/Caleb, Mom/Jonah, Samuel/G'ma Schmitz.  Zoe was a "floater" and dad was picture taker/judge at the end.

Not only did I do a poor job of cooking supper on this fine evening, but I did a poor job of taking photos as well.  The winning house is not even represented and neither is Jonah save for the back of his head!

What can I say?

The brood doing there thing. 

Happy Sam and G'ma Schmitz pausing for a photo op.

Zoe is just making sure that her brother Jonah didn't eat too much candy this year, as in the past!

Doris and Calebber McCheese doing the same.

That's a whole lot of sweet on that table.  This is, I believe, the only picture I had where Zoe is helping with the decorating.

One of the finished houses.

Dianne and Robby carefully planning their next move.

G'ma Schmitz and Samuel with their finished house.  Can you find Sam's "hidden" green M & M on the roof of his house?  He was proud of that.  :-)

Captain Zoe in her mask and reverse cape comes to help the judging, in case there's any trouble from one of the non-winning teams.  There nearly was too, as Robby is crazy competitive and was demanding to know why Dad would dare to pick team Mom/Jonah's crazy looking house. 

And that about does it.  I was going to finish with a clever little poem, but I'm feeling about as creative as an un-sharpened pencil...