Real Ginger Bread Houses

While Michael and I were visiting his parents place for Thanksgiving we were able to get his mother's ginger bread recipe. Michael has been wanting to have that recipe so we could make our own ginger bread houses for the holidays. It is a favorite tradition of his to do with his family and he wanted to share that love with our own little family. Now this recipe makes a ton of ginger bread so we decided to have a fun little party with a few friends.
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I cleaned the house yesterday and even late into the night so we wouldn't have to do any of that today. Good thing too because it took us awhile to cook the ginger bread in our very small kitchen and even then we weren't completely ready when our guest started to arrive. I had invited my friend Melissa from the ward and Michael invited a co-worker and his wife to come. We had also invited our next door neighbors but sadly they couldn't make it. Are friends were really great in helping us get the last of the things set up before we started the fun.
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The table was completely packed with the ginger bread and all of the different types of candies that we had for them to put on their houses. Michael and I probably did a bit of an over kill but we just wanted to make sure that our guest had enough of what they needed or wanted for their homes. The entire construction process was a blast with all of us gathered around our small dinning room table.Here my friend Melissa is working on her house. She had to do her house by herself because he husband had to work that day. I think her home looked pretty cute for doing it all alone. She did some things to her house that I am going to have to try and remember for next year. Now in case you are wondering, the person in the background is Albert (Michael's co-worker) playing with Hope. He just loved her as soon as he saw her and she him.Albert and his wife were actually the first ones to finish their ginger bread house. Here is their beautiful work. I just love the little ginger bread people that they put in front of the house and the cute fence on the side too.We took this picture for Albert since he was so proud of the job that he did on the roof. He has a good reason to be too with how strait he was able to get it. In all of the years that I have been doing ginger bread (really graham cracker) houses I have never been able to get mine to look that good. This picture also helps you to see the candy cane fence that they did better too.The very proud building couple and their hard worked on house. I think the best part of this picture is what Albert's wife's shirt says. Don't you think that it just fits perfect with what we were doing?Michael and I were the next ones to finish a house. We did put on a little too much candy but we wanted to make sure that all or at least most of the candy got used (which it didn't). We had fun decorating it together and loading this house up. My favorite part that I am not sure if you noticed was the Santa in our chimney. That was my one and only brilliant idea for the night.Now if you didn't believe me when I told you that we put a lot of candy on our house hopefully you will after looking at this picture. We were going to put these all over the side of the house since it is one of Michael's favorite candies but we ran out of icing. I guess we will just have to make more next time. That or just cut back on the amount of candy that we put on the house. Which one would you choose to do?Here you get a tiny sneak peak of all of our homes together on the table. As I am sure you have already figured out that Michael and my house is in the front center, Albert's and his wife's house is on the right back and Melissa's house is in the back left. Compared to everyone else's homes Michael and mine's ended up being a little bit messier then the others. One thing that I almost forgot to tell you that you might find funny is that while we were making our homes we watched the movie Charley and the Chocolate Factory. It just seemed appropriate for what we were doing instead of watching a Christmas movie.The best part of the entire night for me was when the men offered to do the dishes! YEAH!!! For you to understand what a big deal this was for me I probably should have taken a picture of just how bad the kitchen was. You can use you imaginations to picture the worst kitchen mess that you have had in your own homes and then multiply that by ten and you might get half way.Our cute little ginger bread neighborhood. From left to right we have: Albert and his wife's house, Melissa's house, and then Michael and mine's house. Isn't it just the sweetest neighborhood you could ever want to visit or live in? But if you move into the neighborhood you have to watch out for little children named Hansel and Gretel. We are thinking of starting a neighborhood protection plan.I almost forgot to get a close up of Melissa's house when she was all finished but luckily last minute I remembered to do so. Everyone said that they had a wonderful time and that we should do another party again soon. Michael and I would love to through another party but it is going to be really hard to top this one.