Graham Cracker House Playgroup

Where we live we have a lovely little playgroup. Actually, it’s a fairly big playgroup, which is nice because there’s always a different mix of kids and we’re always somewhere new and different.

As we approached Christmas, I said to myself: “Self, let’s decorate gingerbread houses with the playgroup friends. Won’t that be fun?”

Flash forward to yesterday morning about 10 minutes before the kids started arriving: “Self, stop talking. Stop thinking. Stop coming up with these RIDICULOUS ideas.”

So here’s what happened in between those two conversations with self:

– A friend of a friend heard that we were planning to make houses. She was planning on doing it with a Daisy group and asked me about how I would make/find icing. I sent her the royal icing recipe, which is just a box of powdered confectioner’s sugar, two egg whites and 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar. She planned, as I did, to procure the houses themselves at Ikea, which meant no baking.

– After her party, which went well, she said “it’s really difficult to clean the stuff up, so cover your furniture, and have some extra houses on hand because they break easily.”

– Self said to self: “Self, our kids are a good bit younger than hers. And the Ikea houses are several dollars a piece. Yikes. Maybe we need to just have a playgroup with… playing.”

– Self saw this post. Plan sounded reasonable again.

– Self decided that a cardboard support structure underneath would be better for little (clumsy) toddler and preschooler hands.

– Self made this and recruited another Mom to come and help the day prior to playgroup. (Thanks, Katherine!)  I scored and folded on the dotted lines. Self thought self had it under control.

– Self laid out trays of pre-made houses and candy. Plates to build on. Attempted to keep M and K appeased and out of trouble while trying to make the icing the morning of. ALMOST LOST IT when the power went out. Repeatedly. Went running up and down the stairs repeatedly trying to figure out which panel was causing the problem. Decided that as long as the one on the main floor was working, I’d deal with the others later. Went back to making icing and all of a sudden thought: this is going to be the biggest disaster in the history of playgroup disasters. This icing will be eeeeeverywhere.

Results?