A Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real Quickie

Every Thursday at Like Mother, Like Daughter 

Just a quickie as there is simply too much life happening over here (I promise I'll try to explain later).  It just occurred to me that tonight's events were just perfect for an impromptu PHFR.

So, here ya go.

 Pretty

Sometimes life gets to be to lifelike and you just have to stop and force the children to come down to the kitchen and make them make gingerbread houses for the first time in their lives.  That's what we did tonight.  In the words of that song that usually makes me want to puncture my own eardrums, "We need a little music, need a little laughter, need a little singing ringing from the rafters..."

We each got a small house to decorate.  Mine was an unmitigated disaster.  Notice this is not an Ugly, Sulky, Pissed-Off, Real entry.  Thus, you won't be seeing it.  The above house is Redheaded Snippet's.  She was actually the impetus for this project as she spent an entire afternoon chattering excitedly about the gingerbread houses they made in her Culinary 101 class.

Happy

Happy is the home where Dad will roll up his sleeves and dive into a gingerbread making task with gusto and flair!  This is The Viking's gingerbread fire house.  As always, his creativity makes me just swoony over him.

This has nothing to do with gingerbread houses, but it did make me happy this week.  These are what my family has always called Butterballs.  The rest of the world calls them Russian Tea Cakes or Mexican Wedding Cakes but, to us, they're Grandmom Fisher's Butterballs.  I have my great-grandmother's recipe and I used it to make 5 (rapidly dwindling) dozen of these babies.

Funny

Calvin's gingerbread house, the Zombie Gingerbread Apocalypse.  I don't know which amuses me more, the holes he poked into the roof, or the solitary normal candy decoration in the center of it.  That kid...

Notice the impaled and bleeding zombies and the others eating body parts.  Also, the careful addition of a dusting of snow.

It should come to no surprise that feasting on flesh is tiring work so, naturally, a soak in a hot tub is a must for the hardworking zombie.

For some reason, this little guy is my favorite.

Real

...and, of course, the entire tub of sprinkles was almost immediately knocked to the floor (by THE VIKING) and all of the sprinkles reduced to a red, white and green powder that was promptly tracked all over the downstairs.

I have a feeling this has been the start of a new family Christmas tradition.  Sprinkle dust and all.