Paige signs!

It happened first Friday, though it might have happened before. Paige signed both "more" and "light."

Demonstration follows!

Gingerbread house, Phase II

When we last posted, Claire and mom were putting the finishing touches on their gingerbread house. Evening was turning to night. Conversation went a little like this:



Did you catch that look on mom's face?!?!?

Needless to say, somebody was very pleased with themselves...



and having trouble keeping her hands off the house.








We went to bed that night hoping to let the house and its icing glue settle.

Settle it did.

Dad got up in the middle of the night to find it collapsing. Frightened by the implications of making it worse (a tearful, angry child) and unsure how to fix it (complete structural incompetence), he woke mom to tell her the grim news.



Mom, stunningly, thought it all pretty funny. Especially dad's reaction.



She diagnosed the problem as too-soft gingerbread. In other words, she didn't bake it long enough. So nice of her to take responsibility rather than to shift it onto the person who loaded the house's roof down with an inordinate amount of mints, gummy worms and gum drops.

Dad sure enjoyed those gum drops.

Gingerbread house, Phase 1

OK, so this actually took place several days before Christmas, during one of those snow-packed days when Sarah didn't venture out and the rest of us were content to stay indoors, too.

The oldest girls decided to make a gingerbread house. From scratch. None of those Trader Joe's pre-packaged haunts in this house. No sir. With a little help from Joy of Cooking and I don't know what other sources, Sarah and Claire found a pattern and recipe and went to work.



Claire loved pounding on the dough and only ate about one-fourth cup of it raw.



The dough was molded into squares and rectangles and set outside in the cold to firm up.





Now the fun part! While Claire napped, mom started assembling the house. It was as if Sarah had been beamed back to that pottery class she often pines for.



Icing became glue in her hands. It also became faux icicles.



She used her college coffee cup to prop up the side while she constructed.




Claire awoke to a house that needed decorating. She was excited and sneaking tastes, but still talking sleepy nonsense.



She plunged into the bags and bags of gumdrops, gummy penguins, gummy worms and peppermints that dad bought (too much of, conveniently) at Winco.






"How do you make icicles," Claire would ask later. "Nature makes icicles," dad replied. "What!?" she asked. "Nature," he said. "What's nature?" she asked. "It's everything outside," dad said in his finite wisdom.



The gummy bears became a bit of a point of contention....



What does the end product look like? You'll have to come back to find out.