Celebrating the Ordinary: The gingerbread house balance...

Usually the gingerbread making is my thing.

In fact I used to love buying my favorite candy like the pastel eccos for the roof and spice drops for the perfect wreaths and trees. That ended somewhere between 5-10 years ago..I lost track but I do know it has been a long time since I decorated the gingerbread house.

I completely turned it over to the kids.

Yea I was there to supervise to make sure the royal icing didn't end up on the ceiling but the actual decorating was all kiddos.

Enter in Tom.

He never really was a part of this particular tradition. Shocking but true because he loves to create.

Any child school projects...Tom.

I mean this is his forte...he could spend days doing doing something like this.

So when he started in with the kids

I was super excited because I knew that we were going to have ourselves a stunning little house.

So while Tom and Ella plotted and planned...

Charlie drank his 9th cup of hot chocolate for the day.

After a while Charlie joined in the fun and what I didn't count on was Tom let him. He let him put that candy on the roof with the risk that the whole thing would collapse. He didn't even care that Charlie broke the pattern of gum drops. That takes serious control and it is control that I never had. That is why I had to back off completely. I was not a half way kinda gal with my house decorating.
It was either a perfect house or it sooo was not.
For years it has been sooo not.

Oh my gosh and as I watched my kiddos and Tom decorate he showed me without even realizing it that he has the ultimate gingerbread house decorating balance.
The balance between stepping in but letting the kiddos decorate at the risk of it being dare I say...ugly.

I had so much fun watching that next year I think I might have the hang of it. Could I possibly go from bystander to helper? Ummm

But once again Benjamin had me doubled over laughing.
He said there just wasn't room for him to decorate so he took matters into his own hand and decided to build his own graham cracker gingerbread house.
It quickly became a competition of sorts.
He even made his own icing and took huge pride and care in decorating is house.
It was soo fun to watch my big boy creating his little house.

In the end I really think we had a tie.

After all Charlie and Ella had Tom to fall back on. :)