Honey's Houses

It's gingerbread day!  One thing I love about the holidays is my house always smells like gingerbread.  I had no idea how much I loved that smell.  I asked Mike's family back in July if they could plan on this day for gingerbread.  Why this day?  Mike's mom died 10 years ago today. We didn't focus on her, but I thought it was great the family could be together.  Preston also got baptized one year ago today.  My how time flies!

Ready for gingerbread!

I have a slight obsession with buying gingerbread candy

Audrey came with us to church today.  She stayed at our house afterwords until gingerbread time.  She decorated a house and left after pizza.  She was thrilled Shannon brought vegetarian pizza.

Audrey

I had a great time today.  I love being around Mike's family.  I wish we could get together more often.  His family is so creative.  Each year everyone's houses are completely different.  This year I was prepared for Xander.  He loves to do horror houses.  I stocked up on candy at Halloween for him.  I used red frosting to put his house together, although the frosting didn't turn out blood red....oh well.

Miah, Jorja, Maysen 

 Lisa

 Brandon & Tage

 Weston

 Aimee

 Stockton & Miah

 Maysen

 Steve & Sherry

I didn't get a picture of Tage alone with her finished house, but her house was so adorable!  The google eyes were a big hit this year!

Tage's house

 Preston & Jorja

 Shannon

 Nathan & Lisa

I try and get family and individual pictures every year.  I missed many people this year!  They are slippery!  If I missed them individually, at least I got a family picture of everyone.  I think Erica is the only one who wasn't here who was in town.  Spencer, Connor, Taylor and Michael didn't come of course.  Spencer is at Harvard.  Connor, Taylor and Michael are all on missions.  Two of them will be back next Christmas!  Yay!

Aimee, Nathan, Lisa  

Aimee decorated her house with Nova.  Their house turned out so cute! I don't think I have one picture of Nova though.  For the record, she was there.

Lisa, Aimee, Flying Leo, Melissa

 Lisa & Aimee

 Nathan

 Lisa

 Melissa & Derek

 Derek

 Nice broccoli!

 Melissa made a stable.  Hard to tell, but it was great!!!

 Jacob, Brandon, Weston, Shannon, Steve

 Brandon

 Jacob

 Weston ~ LOVED the monster house!

 Tage, Matt, Miah, Xander, Sherry

 Miah

 Miah & Jorja

 Stephanie, Preston, Jorja

Mike, Maysen, Stockton

 Jorja

 Preston

I didn't get a picture of everyone in my family even!  At least I took a close up of their houses after they went to bed.

Maysen's house

 Stockton's house

 Jorja's house

 I thought the back of her house turned out cute.

 Preston's house.  Looks like he's been taking classes from Xander.

 My kids.  Love it.

 Mike's house

 Stephanie's house

Mike and I stayed up pretty late getting the kitchen put back together. I'm glad we did because it looks great now!  I don't want to put up the candy, because we will just be getting it out again next week.  I hope my scouts can handle it!  This tradition is a lot of work, but I love it.  I also love that my family loves it too.  Tage told me this is her favorite time of the year.  She might just be saying that to make me happy.  If that is the case, it sure worked!