We left Chicago on Sunday afternoon and headed up to rural Warrens, WI to visit my Mom & her husband Bill for Christmas....the road conditions were pretty treacherous, our usual 4 hour drive took six and a half hours. We awoke on Monday morning in their retreat-like log home nestled in the woods
surrounded by snow covered trees and more Blue Jays then I've seen in a long time. After a good morning work out of shoveling snow we headed inside for breakfast and our 3rd bi-Annual Gingerbread House Project (note to Carl that is the infamous Blue Shovel).
It's been 2 years since we did this and I didn't have time to get any supplies - Mom said not to worry, she had everything we needed as she presented me with the pre-fab house kit that she bought at the store. It was already baked and stuck together! I said "we have to build something, they took all the fun out of it". I then realized we could use this little pre-made cabin portion as a base and create an addition! We made templates out of cardboard and Bill (a retired home builder of many years) consulted. 
I traced and cut the walls from the gingerbread dough then baked them. 
They got a little warped and some were thicker than others, we knew early on we might have some structural issues.
Our first batch of icing was too thin, this also contributed to the problems. As you can see it took many hands to put this together. 
Mom did a beautiful job decorating the front, I was distracted by falling walls and only managed to get half a coconut roof, and the backside done. 
Bill ran down to his shop and cut us a little piece of wood to help support the roof...we should have stopped while we were ahead: our roof was falling in. 
We raced to get a photo before the crash. 
Now we know how to do it next time...(we will use a drill and use bamboo skewered beams). It still was great fun and as many art teachers have told me, sometimes it's more about the process and the journey than the end product. We laughed a lot and had a good time, I was impressed that it worked up to the point that it did.We went on to have a lovely Christmas Eve with more family and 3 crazy dogs running around.