Gingerbread Houses

In the past Christmas eve is the day we made our gingerbread houses but after too many years of cramming in too much stuff to do on Christmas eve(mainly for me) I've come to the conclusion that gingerbread houses need to be done beforehand.  This idea seemed to work so much better and we get to enjoy the houses out on display for even longer which makes me think we might even do them earlier next year because my favorite decorations are always made by my girls!

Another difference this year is that I purchased the Trader Joe's gingerbread kits instead of the already assembled ones from Walmart or Target.  I thought it would be a little more fun to actually build them ourselves and it was plus the girls loved that they had little people and a dog to add on at the end!  We all agreed Trader Joe's houses for the future which can you ever really go wrong with anything from that place!??

This also might just have been the first year we made it through gingerbread houses without any tears.  

Hallelujah!!!

They came out absolutely perfect and smell quite delicious when you walk past them!

and because I'm pretty sure I will not be posting again before Christmas I wanted to add a picture of this fun craft I did with the girls as well.  It was really easy and I love that I get to take it out every year!  I was originally going to do separate trees for each of them but hubby thought it would be cool to have both of their handprints together on one tree so that is what we did.  The bottom two rows are Kayla's prints and the top two are Brooklyn's.

Now I'm off to get some cleaning done so I can spend the day playing games with my girls and watching a few movies.  Hope you are all having a wonderful week!!!