Nailed It!

We have been loving looking at pictures online of attempts made at Pinterest projects that didn’t turn out quite right.  They always have a picture of the beautiful creation that was pinned, and then below it is the finished product that fell a bit short with the caption “Nailed It!”  When we began the endeavor today of making gingerbread houses useing graham crackers we joked about how this could go wrong and become a “nailed it” moment. 

We all did quite well with the project—but Lucy went beyond even nailing it!  She was over ambitious with a two story, not so stable structure that didn’t take long to fall down.

It started off well, and she had visions of sugar plums dancing in her head, and all the other candy things she was going to decorate it with!

Each time it fell over, she attempted to put it back together, but the structure just kept getting less and less sound.  The graham crackers were so saturated with icing they began to crumble.  It was such a mess—but that was nothing yet….

Mike was an engineering mastermind with the graham crackers!  I need to get a picture of the finished product as it truly is remarkable!!

I went simple.  I call it the trailer, but look at how happy those little bears are on the front porch.  You just can’t argue with joy like that  :)  They have some happy bushes, a chimney, a garden (that is what I call the vertical garden thing to the right), and even a giant dog turd (to the right).  Bella had to be represented  :)

Clara very much enjoyed this project.  We call her finished product the swimming pool as it is more of four sides, somewhat standing, and it is filled with candy.  She did make an impressive garden though!

For Lucy the project just went from bad to worse.  It was so funny to watch her literally fight with this graham cracker goo!  She does this (she had a horrible fight with grilled cheese not too long ago in which the grilled cheese won).  In this case, the graham cracker goo didn’t just win, but it kicked her butt!!

Mike was undeterred by the drama across the table from his mastery.

The whole thing ended up with Lucy throwing food (which made me think she needed to be “punished” with the left over nasty cake we had from Clara’s birthday).  I actually intended to get everyone outside for the big food fight, but it didn’t work out that way.  The bad news—what a MESS!!  The good news—my kitchen sparkles now as it has been scrubbed down from ceiling to floor  :)  I was taking some video and used up the memory on my phone.  We got the after shots on a different camera that I will need to work with the get those pictures downloaded.

It was fun and Lucy now laughs about it.  We have since all showered, eaten dinner, and gone driving around looking at Christmas lights—but Lucy is now hunkered down in the kitchen trying her hand at another house (a smaller one now).  I’m afraid to go in there—but I do not hear yelling and so far no food has gone flying—so we should be good to go  :)