Gingerbread House with the Kids

Today the kids and I decorated a gingerbread house.  I had thoughts of baking one from scratch, but honestly with my kids aged 4.5 and 2, they wouldn't have had the patience for it (and as a result neither would I!).  So I purchased a ready built house kit (with a tiny amount of candy) from Target.  I bought some additional nuts and candy to use to decorate it. 

I wasn't too concerned with perfection, but I was hoping it would look nice.  The kids actually did pretty well with it and didn't try to take candy off of the house.  Daisy, 2, put on a few pieces but mostly sat there eating stuff out of the bags.  Seymour, 4.5, did really well and put on lots of decorations. 

Yogurt pretzel roof, tiny gummy bear Christmas "lights"

Candy rock chimney

The back door

Seymour had the idea to make a Santa Claus, but for a while I wasn't sure what I was going to use to make him.  Then I decided to just put some things together and hope for the best -- and he actually looked pretty good!  I used two red candy rocks that were roundish, half a cashew for the head, a slice of small white jelly bean for the beard (and the icing just happened to make a nice little point in the middle), and a peppermint candy for a hat. 

Santa with a ... turban?

I'm glad we all had a good time together.  Unfortunately our card making session did not go as well... Such is life with small children, no?