Not my gumdrop buttons!

All I could think of was poor little Gingy from Shrek while we did our crafty project today!

Thank you Noah! Thank you for our early Christmas present - a Gingerbread House Making Kit. What a perfect present! We enjoyed creating today, as we sang lots of Christmas songs - most of which were completely made up on the fly. Julia loves to make up songs that don't make a lot of sense, and Savannah loves to repeat everything Julia says, and I love to play along with both the girls' singing - because, well... that's what I do! Noah and Rebecca slept through all the fun.

The project was awesome in so many ways... not only do we have an adorable house to adorn the playroom now, but it was chock full of learning opportunities:

• Almost all of the candy decorations are circle shaped.. our shape for this month!
• Lots of color recognition and size descrimination
  
• Following two and three step directions (such as, "First, put on the blue ones, then we will add some gumdrops.")
• Taking turns (one gingerbread house and two learners)
• Patience (We let the walls and roof dry before adding the decorations - it was hard for all of us to wait!)
• Fine motor (tiny little caandies for big toddler hands)
• Concentration (finish one area before the "glue"/icing dries THEN move to another part)
• Imagination and creativity

I'm quite proud of the girls! They were not tempted to eat any of it, and instead enjoyed creating their masterpiece. After we were done, I gave everyone (including me!!) a smidgeon of icing on their fingers to lick and enjoy.

Check out the gorgeous, yummy looking house!!!

Here's a "Before" shot. They were so excited to get started!

Left: Julia

Right: Savannah

Concentrating!!

The finished product!