#86

Remember this list? Well I haven't given up on it! I am still working on accomplishing everything on it. Apparently I have until October to finish the last 24 items. I don't know if I can do some of them, but we will see! I just love lists and I especially love crossing things off lists. I am one of those people who adds things like "wake up" to my list for the day just so that I can cross it off.


Anyway, Carlie graced us with her presence yesterday so that we could make gingerbread houses, which accomplishes number 86 on my fabulous list. I mean, of course we didn't really use gingerbread, we went the easy graham cracker route, but that counts, right?

Devin was less than impressed with my candy choices for the houses-tootsie rolls, lifesavers, candy canes, and gumballs. But, to my defense, I was at the dollar store and the options are sort of limited there. He had to run out and buy more graham crackers and I think we made an extra two or three batches of frosting-let's be honest, this was serious work!
Carlie started out making the Taj Mahal of gingerbread houses-but quickly learned that such a large house was not going to stay standing, so she had to scale back. Aw, so sad.
Here is my finished product. Such a beaut, right? I know, those gumballs look awesome on my fancy house.
And here is Devin's. He is such a perfectionist. Look at his gumdrop tree (he also had to buy those while at the store...apparently gingerbread houses are not complete without gumdrops.) Please also note the "smoke" coming out of the chimney. Who thinks of these things?!
Carlie's scaled back Taj Mahal. Fancy still. Love the walk leading up to the door. It's awesome. Next time I will let Devin pick out the candies we use so that there will be no complaints. :)

Serious works of art. Mine and Carlie's ended up looking a little similar, but great minds think alike, right?

As for the girls, they helped with the gingerbread houses for a while-and by helped I mean ate the candy and crackers and attacked the houses at every opportunity they were given. They went to bed midway through, luckily.

What else have they been up to? Well, remember the sugar cookies we made on Monday (man, I make it seem like we do nothing but eat and make junk. That may be true...)? I woke up to this on Tuesday morning:

Hallie had hauled a chair up to the counter and got a full plate of the cookies. This is what was left. So between her and Sadie, they ate about 5 1/2 cookies. It was generous to leave that last 1/2, right? I am absolutely positive Hallie had 3/4 if not all of them herself. She probably didn't share. She had pulled out her fake kitchen items and put the cookies on the plates to eat them. I saw the remnants on her bedroom floor. So-lesson learned. Leave all items that are edible on top of the fridge when going to bed. OR wake up with your children. :) I am sure they both enjoyed their breakfast that day.
Sugar high? Yes! The other funny thing is that they have been insisting upon wearing similar outfits. The first day it was pink shirts and then the next day pink pants. Today it was polka dots. Cute, nonetheless.

Today I was at work and Devin decided to make the most of the little snow we got and built a little ramp in the front yard for the girls to go sledding down.
I am sure they had more fun than these pictures let on. Love their matching coats too, right?

No sledding trip is complete without hot chocolate! What a good uncle/daddy.

Two more things to add to my love of the season list: Gingerbread houses and sledding! Happy soon to be Christmas!