Gingerbread House 2012: Hagrid's Hut

This year the children wanted to do something from Harry Potter.  The first suggestion was Hogwarts.  I vetoed that because I have no idea how I'd create it.  Plus it would be huge, unless we made a mini Hogwarts.  Maybe next year.  We'll see what the children like next year.

 

Anyway, we settled on Hagrid's hut.  Perfect because it's sort of sloppy and thrown together and that's usually how these houses turn out.  I am not an architect, designer or engineer, but to my children I'm awesome when we make these houses and that's what I love about doing it.  They think I'm amazing and I let them. 

 

Here we see the finished house with the three decorators.  So proud and excited about eating it Christmas day.

These are all the cookies we made as well.  Lauren doesn't like gingerbread, but Spence and Brenna do.  The funniest thing is watching these cookies disappear over the month.  First the frosting is scraped off and then arms, legs, and bits are nibbled away by little mouths.  I love looking at the devastation on the tree.

The back of the finished hut.  I underestimated how big around this thing would be so the back door is a lot taller than the main hut.  Oops.

Here are all the pieces.  Hagrid's hut is a circle so I decided an octagon would be a good shape.  When I began to assemble the hut, Ben, my assistant, pointed out I was making a hexagon.  I'm much better at those.  He enlarged it so all the pieces would fit and it was huge.  Next time I'll make the pieces half the size.

Here I attached the roof of the back door.  Note the load bearing candy cane.  There is another one on the other side.  Roof attachment was successful!  No cave ins, but I did have to take it off real quick and remove the candle that had been propping up the walls as they dried earlier in the day.  I figured the kids would rather look through the door and not see a candle.

The busy decorators/hoarders.

Finished hut, complete with pumpkin patch, rocks, pathway, fence, and a pile of Hagrid's socks for the house elves.

So tempting.

The side view.

Under construction with all of the supports placed strategically.  You can see the candle that was almost entombed.  What you can't see is the canning jar that was entombed under the main roof.  It was so low I new it wouldn't support itself so I cheated and just put the pieces together on top of the jar.  Engineers prerogative.

Happy Birthday Brenna!

She's not a baby any more.  Now a little girl.  I'm so impressed with her generous nature as we planned her birthday party.  It was to take place while Lauren and Spencer were at school and she was very insistent that they have a favor bag and a balloon when they got home.  Such a sweet little girl.

Special tea set.

Special guest for a tea party.

Tiny cupcakes.  Brenna requested cupcakes with cupcakes on top of them.  So we made mini cupcakes with mini reese's peanut butter cups on top.

New blanket!  Hopefully it will help phase out Frankenblankie.

Building a puzzle with her party friends.

Party invitaions.

 

Thanksgiving Day PreFeast Activities

This is how Uncle William prepares for Thanksgiving feasting. I think he wished another Uncle or two were there to spell him inbetween attacks by the neices and nephew. 

Enter the Politeness Totoros

How to encourage good table manners, especially for Spencer and eating foods?  What a dilemma.  So my sister in law had tried an idea she found using Popsicle sticks and giving them out when good manners were demonstrated.  At first she tried an idea where each kid got a stack of sticks and if they noticed someone not using good manners they took a stick from that child's stack.  This idea may work, but with children more docile than mine.  Family dinner would quickly become family brawl if I tried this. 

My children love small things and they also love the movie Totoro, which they watched many times while visiting my parents this past summer.  So why not make little Sculpey Totoros that come out only for dinner and carefully watch for good table manners.  Ben mentioned something his family did with eating food.  Whatever food you wanted, usually dessert, was set in the middle of the table.  Each time you took a bite of the rest of your food the desired food moved a little closer to your plate. 

We combined the ideas and the Politeness Totoros came into being.  They sit in the middle of the table and move closer to each child's plate as polite manners are used.  Each one has a specific manner they are looking for.  Brenna: sitting on her chair while eating; Spencer: eating what is made for dinner; Lauren: chewing with mouth closed.  Of course any lack of good manners sends all three Totoros back a few steps, but they come closer a lot faster when these special things are done.

Did it work?  Well, Brenna stayed in her chair all through dinner last night and she kept looking over at me while eating, being sure I noted her mouth was closed while she chewed.  She looked like a rabbit.  Lauren is actually very good at the table, but I had to come up with something for her.  She did well as usual.  Spencer actually picked up and held a piece of chicken and took a nibble, it was a minuscule nibble, but we've never been able to get him to touch new foods before so I was very pleased.  Hopefully the newness does not wear off too fast.  I wonder if we will take them to restaurants and other people's houses.  Perhaps.

Year of Quilled Holidays

I finally finished another quilling project.  To compliment our quilled family crest I have created five quilled pieces for our favorite holidays.  It's a shame the picture is a little blurry.  I should have waited for later in the day for better light.  I thought they looked cute, but definitely not professional.  Well, that's the way my projects tend to roll.

Catfish Corner

Photos from Catfish Corner in Burlington, Iowa.  We had a lot of fun on our trip this summer.

Advent Calender Completed

My calender is complete.  Now we just have to wait until October.  So very excited.  The backing fabric does not match at all so we won't be taking any pictures of that part.