Christmas-Gingerbread House-Playhouse

We had a nice Christmas in St. Johns this year. We were able to spend time with Grandpa John, Grandma Linda, Jon and his family, Janell, and Jaylen, which is always fun! We missed Justin's family and Jennifer. We look forward to having EVERYONE together in the next couple of weeks for Jennifer's wedding. My kids must have been pretty good this year because Santa found them at Grandpa and Grandma's house. Jacy asked for a Barbie and Lipstick and was not let down! She ended up with the High School Musical dolls Sharpay, Troy, and Gabriella and also a Sleeping Beauty Barbie. Jake wasn't real specific and is happy with empty boxes and wrapping paper, but Santa gave him a fun farmer tractor that he enjoys playing with. He also got lots of CARS toys, since that is his favorite movie!


We headed back to the valley the day after Christmas and had a much longer drive than we expected! It snowed and snowed and snowed!!!It was so beautiful!!! The whole drive from St. Johns to Show Low I don't think that we broke 35mph. It was so cold that our windshield kept icing up. The windshield wipers couldn't keep up... we had to pull over every couple of miles to break the ice off of them. It was so cold!!! It kind of cleared up after Show Low, but there was ice on the road most of the way until we passed Payson.

After we had made it threw we found out that they had closed the road in both directions because they had 18 accidents reported in a 1 hour time frame because of the icy roads. I am thankful that Jay is an experienced winter driver... he got us home safe and sound!

On Saturday morning we were having the Christmas celebration with the Campbell side of the family. One of the funnest traditions we have for Christmas is making Gingerbread houses...enjoying them for a short time.. and the destroying them! That's right...we throw oranges, rocks, shoot them with BB and paint ball guns and sling shots...we have even been known to blow them up with rocket engines! It is really a good time. We weren't able to be with the family to build ours on Thanksgiving, so we woke the kids up at 6:00am to build ours in time to take it to Grandma and Pardner's house. Thank you Grandma Greta for the awesome Christmas aprons!!! The building of it went something like this...

The house was standing on it's own...

The house collapsed...

Jay tried to wipe off the frosting with a baby wipe so that we could try again... The wipe made the gingerbread to wet, so he tried to blow dry it dry...

Didn't work...out came the GLUE GUN!
Jacy did a great job of putting on the finishing touches, and using the blow dryer to help her roof dry a little quicker!

We had one last surprise for the kids that didn't actually happen until today... We got the kids a playhouse for the backyard. They LOVE to be outside so we thought that this would be perfect! Jacy has already made us a ROCK PIE in the play oven and she even lets Jake in there with her to help out. They seem to really enjoy it and I think it will lead to many hours of fun play time OUTDOORS!

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!!