The Gingerbread house fiasco...

Before the story of the gingerbread house I'll do a bit of a catch up.
On Friday night we had Jack's daycare Christmas party which was great fun. They had coloured hairspraying and facepainting. Jack refused the face painting and then at the end of the night decided he wanted it but they'd closed the booth. They had two jumping castles which were great. Jack played on it all night long. Mind you each turn took awhile. It was a slide jumping castle and he'd climb to the top and then hide around the corner of a pillar trying to wait until there were no other kids up there and then slide down. A couple of times one little boy tried to push him down, I think he thought he was stuck.
There was a visit from Santa which Jack was sooooo excited about. The kids had to sing songs to get Santa to come visit which was adorable. When they said Santa was coming Jack looked up in the sky so he obviously understands the concept of the flying sleigh & reindeers, he kept asking for the reindeer, "Where are the reindeers?" "Can we go see them?" The look on Jack's face when he saw Santa coming was just priceless, it even brought a tear to my eye. He was very excited. Here he is patiently waiting on Daddy's lap for Santa to call his name.And then when his name got called he went up, grabbed his gift and took off.Here he is unwrapping his special book from Santa.It was a great night for the kids.
Here's what else has been happening in our household...
I've finally done my Christmas cards and they're all ready to post out. I'm making it a tradition that every year I get personalised stamps done at Christmas time. I think they're a great keepsake idea. I scrapbook one and put one inside the drawer on the advent tree. I got these red and green envelopes at Crazy Clarks ($2 shop) for a bargain but they were just a little too small for my card so I had to trim all my cards. It took ages. And then I rolled a little stamp on the bottom of the envelope to pretty it up. How cute is this...? This was from Jack's daycare. Reminds me though that I'll have to make hand and foot print reindeers with Jack.
Jack and I kept little Charlotte occupied the other day while her Mummy took her brother to swimming so she got to help Jack make up the reindeer food. Don't they look cute. Jack really needs a sister.And here it is all packed up. I've decorated eclipse mint tins as well to send to my cousin's littlies.And now the gingerbread house...
I decided that I wanted to make a gingerbread house on Sunday so I googled some recipes and plans and things, went and bought some extra flour and then had to cut down my recipe because I only had half a cup of glucose so I couldn't use my blueprint anyway. So I made the gingerbread, thought I was pretty clever and cut out windows and things and used lollipops to make stained glass windows and then when I went to assemble it I broke it (insert frustrated crying smiley here). I tried to repair it and put in back together a couple of times over the next couple of hours but when I woke up in the morning I decided it was a lost cause and out of frustration just binned the whole bloody thing!! GRRR!!
Anyhoo, I'm don't like to give up on things I really want to do so I decided to have another go with a simpler recipe and a simpler plan and it worked!!!! YAAY!!! Although I will say that when I finished it last night at about 12.30 I was a bit dissappointed but when Jack walked out this morning and saw it he was very excited. He's decided that teddies live in there (I think he thinks it's the banana in pj's teddies house) and he's checked it out from all angle and even knocked on the door.

If I make one again I'll make more co-ordinated lolly selections.Righteo, I'm off to hopefully (fingers crossed) finish my Christmas shopping!!

Ciao