Gingerbread House Hunters

Liv's class started collecting gingerbread house supplies two weeks ago. Clearly the prep time was warranted--those kids had every type of candy and every color of icing in creation. Their teacher, Mrs. Greer, is a brave lady because I can not imagine the mess the kids made using the icing as glue to 'build' their houses and stick on the candy. Liv was so proud of her house that we're not allowed to eat it, so it's just on display now. Her house is impressive on it's own, but check out the 'yard'. When Liv ran out of real estate on the walls, she just moved to areas between the house and the side walls of her tray and she filled it up...especially in comparison to lots of the other kids houses that have nothing in the yard.

Friday was the last day of school, but during our break we have to be working on our Community Project...every 2nd grader has to pick a local building to build and matching costume for Community Fair Day--I think this is supposed to make them aware of their community and whatnot, but so far I am unexcited to use old diaper boxes to build a hospital (Liv's building of choice). But, I won't tell Liv that as I try to motivate her to leave her brand new room to work on a school project.....

Which brings me to the subject of Liv's room. We've wanted to redo it for a while and thought about doing it for her birthday, but we ended up being too bust with finishing the bathroom and patio and pergola. So, when Liv told me she didn't really have anything major she wanted for Christmas, the room redo seemed perfect. After much discussion and design book consultation, we decided to go with a 'surfer girl' theme using mostly pinks and oranges. My husband has built a loft bed, complete with wainscoting detail, a bookshelf with drawers, a decorative shelf and a surfboard mirror frame. He still has to build the desk and add lighting under the bed and trim the room with wainscoting and a chair rail and new baseboards. I've got the room painted and will be painting all the new pieces as they are deemed ready. Kevin took the rest of this week off to get everything done, but of all his attributes speed isn't one of them, so I'm hoping we can pull it off...Liv has opted to not see her room during this process, so her mattresses are on the floor of Josie's room and she hasn't seen anything that will be in the room. I'm pretty excited for her to see everything...because everything will be new! Pictures to come....