Gingerbread Train

In an effort to make memories many families make gingerbread houses for the holiday season. I saved up and opted for a train. I also opted for a pre-packaged kit because, even though we can’t eat it, it is cheaper than trying to make a gluten-free version that might not even work.

I brilliantly opted to set up the train station (hee hee, see what I did there) while Zen napped. He usually naps, at the very least, an hour but usually 2-3 hours. My plan was perfect.

The kids and I set out. I squirted out the Royal Icing and the kids built the train. We started decorating and the train was turning into a masterful work of art. Our hands were sticky with sugar and we were laughing and suddenly Zen was in the kitchen with us. No one heard him wake up. No one heard him make his way over to us. He is stealth-like. Next thing we know his hands are grabbing all the candies faster than we could say “Stop eating our gingerbread train!”

Our peaceful decorating turned into a crazy scene of “Fast! We need to finish this before he eats it all!” Between squirting frosting, flying shreds of coconut, and candy being pried from chubby baby hands we finished the train….mostly. It sure isn’t pretty any more. It is wilty and a bit sad, but it was fun and we laughed a lot. Score 1 for memory making!

Sure Zen made the moment crazy, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. He made us laugh a lot. He got to be a part of the process. It is OK he pulled wheels off and took the roof off and made the train tip over. We all had a fantastic time and that is really the point.

Merry Christmas!

It may not be pretty, but it was lots of fun!

Snowmen Ornaments Craft

The kids have swim instructors/coaches who are incredibly awesome and so I thought a nice Christmas gift was in order. However, there was two issues. One, what if they do not celebrate any of the holidays? Two, I have a very limited budget and we are talking about gifts for 8 people, not including C-Dog’s martial arts instructors.

Hi Ho Hi Ho! It’s off to Pintrest I go! I found a blog, in another language, that showed a really cute idea, so I pinned it. You can look at the pin here. The great thing about this idea is snowmen are generic. They do not represent a holiday. They represent a season.
This idea was even more fantastic because I had everything on hand!

The kids used white acrylic paint and painted the front, back, and sides of the sticks. When they were dry they used Sharpie markers to make faces and buttons. They used orange craft foam from our stash and cut out carrot noses. The dug through my ribbons and picked 3 colors and cut them into scarves. They then went and got coordinating felt from our stash and cut rectangles out of it. They grabbed a ball of yarn and I pulled out the hot glue gun.

I won’t let them use the hot glue gun, so I did all the assembly. I added the carrot noses and scarves first. I folded the bottom of the hats up and glued them. The kids added sparkles to the folded bottoms. When they dried I wrapped them around the snowmen heads, tied them with yarn, trimmed the tops of the hats down and then frayed them. The kids then took a sewing needle and threaded it with a thicker thread, pulled it through the backs of the hats, and knotted them so the snowmen can be hung. I added all of their names to the backs and the year.

The kids made cards and we put everything in little seasonal goodie bags I found at the dollar store (8 for $1, perfect!)

I did not take pictures of the steps, but I plan to and add them later. I wanted to get this great idea out there though, so I hope you are following along OK!

This project cost me the frugal amount of $1! Here is a picture of the finished snowmen.

homemade snowmen ornaments

~Andrea