Tuesday, October 07, 2008

While the men are away...

Do you have a family tradition that takes place while the men are attending the Priesthood Session of General Conference? Each October the Vanderbeek women get together and eat tons of candy and make Gingerbread Haunted Houses. Well, it started out as Graham Cracker houses, but the large ones always crumbled. The year I was going through cancer treatment I found these Wilton pre-made houses. I buy the one you have to assemble although they have pre-assembled houses too. I just use melted brown sugar to instantly stick the thing together. No waiting for icing to dry. It includes icing, by the way. And some decorations. And while I don't bother to cut windows out of the gingerbread version (I used to make 'stained glass windows' out of melted jolly ranchers, I still enjoy the creative time. This year I only bought one house and it was going to be Haeley's. She opted for the graham cracker house grandma made for each of the grandkids. Coleton even wanted to join in. He LOVED the brightly colored icing - Thanks Aunt K and Grandma S! My children really enjoy this tradition.

3 comments:

Krysta said...

What a fun idea! It turned out so cute. I wish we had a tradition for that night. Casey always goes, but the kids and I don't do the same thing every year. We need to get one!

Unknown said...

we need to start something like this! I love it. But you need to tell me where you got the foam haunted house thing.

The Taylor's said...

Laura, Funny who you come across in the blog world. This is Natalie (Price) Taylor. I used to work with Tyler at Mackley-I was front desk. He took our wedding pics! I ran across the web site Errand of Angels and saw that you were a contributor & saw your profile. I have two children now & am expecting my third in February. Last week, our 18 month old daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia. It was interesting to read of your own battle with cancer. She has now had 2 chemo treatments, several blood transfusions and a couple bone marrow asparates and spinal punctures. We are just at the beginning of what seems to be a very long journey, but we too are seeing the blessings that can come from trials. It was just nice to know that others have came through it. We have a blog, but it's private. If you'd like to reconnect my email is natalie-taylor@hotmail.com. Tell Tyler Hi.