With two whole weeks of Christmas vacation before us (with no travel plans and not much family in town) I knew the kids would be looking to me for some entertainment.

Great.

So we started off our holiday break with a candy eating fest, er, I mean a (faux) ginger bread house making session.

I started with the wonderful and original idea to buy one of those kits from the store and simply have the kids assemble. Easy peasy. Then I thought, why do that whey I can probably make home made ginger bread and not have to get out of my jammies? I looked up some recipes and thought it was totally do-able. But then something died inside of me when I realized I’d have to go to the store for molasses and cloves.

So I went with the easiest route I possibly could.

Graham Cracker Houses

Have you ever made them before? You might miss out on the wonderful smell of gingerbread wafting through the air and having cute windows and doors in your house but when you are 8, 5, and 2 you don’t care. Heck, you don’t even know. Really the fun is licking the frosting off your fingers as you make them and looking forward to eating the houses after you’ve waited 3 whole hours to show your daddy when he gets home from work.

To make your own Graham Cracker House you’ll need the following:

cut cardboard covered with aluminum foil for your base
graham crackers
sandwich bags for squirting icing
a candy assortment such as jelly beans, smarties, licorice, sprinkles
and royal icing

Here is the royal icing recipe I used. It worked like a champ.

ROYAL ICING

3 egg whites
1/2 t. cream of tartar
1 lb. confectioners sugar

I let each kid take a turn using the beaters. Maybe a minute each until the icing was fluffy and getting stiff.

I taught the kids how to squeeze the icing out of the sandwich bag (cut a tiny bit of corner off one of the bottom corners) and helped them build their houses without interfering too much (hard for me.) Then I let them go to town with the decorating. If was fun to see the things they came up with. Bird nests and exploded bombs in the front yard. Ha.

I did help Leah quite a bit with building her house but I was surprised with her house decorating abilities and soon backed off to let her at it. Good job you cute frosting face two year old!

Ta da! Day one of Christmas Vacation down.

Have any of you given in, bought some Toms and then wore them to death?

I did. I bought some classic grey ones about a year or so ago and fell in love. I love slip ons and these were perfect for me. I wore them every single day that I could. I wore them until the holes in my toes were so bad they were unwearable.

Then I saw some pictures on pintrest of fabric covered Toms and thought “I can do that.” So I grab my beat up Toms, some old scrap fabric left over from my Rollie Pollies, and some liquid fusion glue. I cut my scraps, patched up the holes from inside and out and globbed on tons of glue and let dry. I tried to reshape the fabric like the original Toms toe. I didn’t take any before pictures because I wasn’t thinking about my blog and I was having doubts that it would even work. I knew I sure couldn’t make them any worse than they were.

I was pleasantly surprised. TA DA! Almost good as new shoes!

I’ve been wearing them for a while and are so happy to get more life out of them. Less socks in the laundry, the better! I know they are pricey shoes for what they are and I’m hesitant to buy another pair (even though I want!) but when you consider the fact that Toms donates a pair of shoes to a child in need when you purchase… I think it’s pretty darn cool.

I really want a pair for Leah and Emma.

I found a pretty good tutorial here on how to cover your Toms. I found it after I had done mine. I like the buttons and fabric scraps she used. Cool, huh? She used a different glue too- E6000. She said it’s flexible which the glue I used really wasn’t.

Well, what do ya know… the chickens are interested in my red-toed Toms too.

Hello, Ladies.