Weather and Gingerbread Houses.

I wish I could go to sleep and wake up about January 3rd.

But, I can't. The weather is about to be dreadful again here to boot.

Sunday is to be cold for us, with high winds (30-40mph) and rain.

On Monday the winds will die down but it will still be windy with some rain.

My niece's hubby's football championship game is Monday. I hope it's at least not raining during the game for them. Sitting in the stands getting rained on isn't fun. But I know she will not think about not being in the stands for him. 

They are coming from Florida so to them it will be bitter cold. (high 50s)

I put two Mexican blankets in a box, socks that have batteries that I charged so she will have warm feet, and some food like goldfish, etc for her daughter at the game (5yrs old)  I am bringing it up to their hotel, and dropping it off because they don't get in until Saturday night. I am not driving in that wind and rain on Sunday for 45 - 1 hr north. Nope. 

So as I did last year, I will leave a box at the front desk so they will receive it upon check-in. 

Last year I gave her gloves, scarves, hats and hand warmers, etc. 

She told me she bought all that this year so she was all set. But she's pregnant and not much fits over her bump. Her winter coat she wears only when visiting our family up north doesn't close now. So I put in a big ole fleece-lined hooded sweatshirt that no longer fits me. She can wear that under the coat that doesn't close. 

It no longer fits me because 1. It was always a bit tight in my chest and 

2. as my husband was losing weight from his stroke I was eating my feelings.😉so while everyone tells me it looks fine it is not comfortable to me

A woman at rehab was discussing a gingerbread house she was building and asked if I had ever used one of these kits she was lamenting about. Nope, I never had.

I didn't tell her I only made one and you could walk inside it. 

I just said that I have never made one. 

Not ever making one is not entirely true. (but never again)

My husband made one for Santa to enter and it was located at the Mall where we lived. Santa sat outside the house and the kids came there to sit on his lap, for pictures and all that stuff they do. 

The frame was a shed in its raw form that was set in the mall by the mall maintenance workers. We then attached the cookies via royal frosting.

Rick made royal frosting by the big ole bucket full.

Whole chocolate chip cookies for the roof, half chocolate cookies for the trim. Then gingerbread squares for the "bricks"

The roof was made of large chocolate chip cookies as you can see below. 

These were made at our cookie company. We did not use leftover cookies so each day we accumulated the leftovers for this. We also made a lot of extras for this house. I said "we" but it was all Rick. I did not do the baking at the cookie company, Rick did. 

The gingerbread pieces (squares/bricks) were made with extra ginger so it had a wonderful aroma in the mall but too much ginger to eat. But ooh the smell was fabulous as you walked through the mall. He made them on enormous cookie sheets and then cut them to size.

The frosting or the white between the bricks and ginger pieces are all royal frosting as is the roof and cookies. Some of the trim was candy and that was fun to decide which pieces went where.  My sister and I helped decorate it along with the husband of the manager of the mall (they were our friends and that's how we got asked) If you click on the photo to make it larger, then you will see the details. I couldn't make them larger here or they would go off the page.

Inside were all the things the mall needed for Santa. The chair etc. 

It was cute in person. You could tell it was homemade and that is what people seemed to like. Rick got interviewed on the local TV news. That was a hoot.

That was the last time Rick or I worked on a gingerbread house in our lifetime. 

How 'bout you?