dumbstruck

When December arrived, I asked the girls what things they wanted to do the very most in preparation for Christmas.  (It seems like this time of year can get so busy because I sometimes try to do everything instead of choosing just a few special activities to enjoy.)  The girls almost immediately agreed that one thing they really wanted to do was to make gingerbread houses.  A few days later, I happened to be at IKEA, where I picked up a kit for each of the girls.  They were so excited when I brought them home and from then on, I was asked "When can we decorate our gingerbread houses?" about every five minutes from morning until night.  

We finally got around to assembling and decorating them and they had a marvelous time.  As we set to work beautifying our little cottages, I was reminded of the time my best pal Valerie and I made some gingerbread houses in college.  If I must say so myself, they were pretty darn fancy.  Yards, fences, the whole nine yards.  It was so much fun. 

Of course, Ryenne had to build a "no copying" fortress around herself in order to protect her artistic notions from being duplicated by her sisters. ( As she often reminds me, it's not easy being the big sister.)

This time around we didn't get quite so involved, but even so- the girls were pretty impressed with my mad gingerbread-house-decorating-skills.  In fact, Kate told me repeatedly that she was "dumbstruck" with my abilities.  

I'm pretty sure I can't remember making anyone dumbstruck in recent memory, let alone one of my children.  Let's just say gingerbread houses will be a tradition from now on.