Gingerbread Houses and Visiting Santa

We've tried to keep up with the festivities - mostly doing them ourselves since all our new little friends seemed to catch the sickness bug and didn't want to spread it. :)

We made our Gingerbread house together for the first time.  The event went as follows:

Ross held a piece of red fondant in his hand the entire time (since I told him he couldn't eat any of it until we were done building the house and took a picture) and then gobbled it up the second we said, "Go".  He did help put on pieces of candy though.

Ruby was our scraper.  If any candy was dropped/misplaced/not guarded - it was gone.  She immediately popped it in her mouth crunching it happily...that girl is going to have cavity problems - I just know it.

Steve felt the need to use every single part of our gingerbread house kit - including squirting ALL the frosting on the house - even when it looked finished.  

I attempted some exterior design skills which were rejected by my children, and got banned to picture taking. :)

Who cares about looking at cameras when candy is on the table?

It was quite "frosty" thanks to Steve - Ross helped place most of the candy on the roof - Steve took care of the chimney.

Hurry and take the picture mom so we can eat it!

It's finished

This was supposed to be a Christmas tree, but Steve ran out of green frosting...

Time to eat!

Yum!

One of the pleasures of living in a small town is that you can only get so big of a crowd at places.  My friend, Kami, told me that Santa comes to one of the banks here where they give you candy, a toy, take your picture and give it to you for free, AND there are no lines.  This is incredible compared to visiting the City Creek mall in Utah where you have to PAY a ridiculous amount, schedule well in advance, and wait forever to see Santa.

We showed up with no one else there and a VERY legitimate Santa sitting in his chair just waiting for Ross and Ruby to show up.  Ross lit up like a Christmas light immediately.  He was so excited to see Santa and talked to him THE ENTIRE TIME - telling him about any and everything he could think of.  This is quite different from last year when he was so excited he couldn't even say a word.  

He climbed right up on his knee and, even though we rehearsed over and over that you can tell Santa three things you're wishing for and he will bring ONE of them to you, he immediately listed off about 500 things he was wishing for that Christmas, and threw in there somewhere in the middle that he had been a good boy.
 

Making sure to tell Santa EVERYTHING he's thinking of - he told him all about his grandparents too. (Thank goodness there wasn't a line of kids waiting.) :)

Autographed by Santa!  I love Ross's face. :)

When it was Ruby's turn she was so happy to smile and wave at Santa, until we put her on his knee - she turned into an acrobatic gymnast at that point trying to get away as quick as she could.  We squeezed a picture in, and she was off exploring.  She kept coming back to smile and wave at Santa though - from a safe distance of course.  

You can tell how Ruby feels about this experience. :)

And she's done. :)

They both got a candy cane and a bell as well as an autographed picture from Santa - score!  VERY fun. :)