Gingerbread Houses

What do you get when you combine 8 kids under the age of 5 with candy and frosting? A gingerbread house party, of course! For the past two years our good friend Debbie has hosted a party at her house. We've had so much fun the last two years that we've promised each other to continue the tradition until the kids graduate from high school -- and maybe even after that.

Here's Andrew and one of his best friends, George. They were excellent at mushing up the packets of frosting.



Amazingly, Andrew actually put some of the candy on the house. Most of the candy and frosting ended up in his mouth.



See the long hallway? Most of the time the kids were racing up and down this hallway, sometimes with cars, often yelling nonsense words, but always with great gusto, and generally being led by Andrew.



The kids LOVE Debbie. Willa has thoroughly adopted her.



Speaking of Willa, check out these curls. Just like Cindy Brady, right?



Debbie's family is full of musicians, going all the way back to the first Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Her youngest daughter is in the high school band, and she and some of her friends brought their instruments and played Christmas carols for us. As soon as Willa caught sight of the instruments she started begging to play them. Literally begging, to the point where she was grabbing hold of the kids and trying to climb up their legs to get to the instruments.




Once they started playing Andrew turned into the bandmaster. He gave them tips, encouragement, told them to "take it from the top," and in general became the conductor/class clown.