The House That Grace Built

Grace was SO excited to help us with her pink house!

Earlier this fall, Kyle and I were cleaning up the kitchen, and he asked if we could throw away the Hello Kitty gingerbread house kit that's been sitting on our kitchen counter for the past few years.  It was a gift to Grace from my Aunt Anne on Thanksgiving, and like some things go, it just hadn't gotten done.

Grace supervised as mommy worked on the sides.

Instead of throwing it away, I said, let's keep it through this Christmas. Maybe we will do it this year, and if not, we can get rid of it.  As luck would have it, we found ourselves home on a rare evening in December this week, with plenty of time to put it together.

My happy helper!

When opening up the box, full of pink gingerbread pieces and candies to decorate with, Kyle noticed that it actually only expired in September of this year!  We still decided that we probably wouldn't eat it, but had fun decorating it anyway.  Uncle Johnny says he still might eat it. . . but we never know about him.

All smiles watching daddy add the decorations.

I set about opening things up, and gave Kyle the job of kneading the bag of icing. He says I only ever give him the jobs I don't want to do, but I don't see how there's any truth to that!

It was such a fun family night!

We set Grace in her pink chair and pulled her Minnie Mouse folding table up to it.  Although she wasn't able to help, she smiled and grinned as we put it together in front of her.

Helping Grace add her own special touches.

I was in charge of building the house, and icing, and Kyle was in charge of the decorating. We even helped Grace to add a few decorations of her own at the end.  It's certainly not the fanciest house on the block, but it's definitely ours.

Our house is all decked out for Christmas.

So often, I forget about being able to do things like this because Grace can't help in the traditional sense. But I'm making it one of my New Year's resolutions to do more things like this as a family, because it was the best night we'd had at home in a long time. And I can't wait to see what kind of projects 2016 brings!

MLH