A plague on the gingerbread house

Mr. 5 really wanted to make a gingerbread house so I found a recipe on the internet a few days before Christmas and told him we could do one step each night to make the house before Christmas Day (when he wanted to eat it - I think that may have been his sole motivation). It was an utter and total disaster start to finish.

Day 1: We of course do not have all the ingredients including molasses (which we borrowed from our lovely neighbors) and ginger (which I tried to make by crushing dried whole ginger). The dough was okay but didn't seem quite the right consistency - refrigerate overnight the recipe said. Okay, that will fix it I'm sure.

Day 2: No, actually dough much worse than before. It is dry and crumbly and impossible to roll out. So I got a bowl of water and tried to rehydrate the dough little by little which made it sticky and messy. We had misplaced the template Daddy had made the night before so we tried to just wing it which was again less than successful. All the while, Mr. 1 was desparately trying to help. By the end we had some pieces that we hoped would work.

Day 3: The final straw came when we tried to assemble our house. The first batch of Royal Icing was too thin so I made a second batch that was thicker but just wouldn't hold the house up. After 4 or 5 collapses, we tried buttressing with legos and this seemed to work. We even added a few decorations with plans to finish up later. The boys went outside for some sledding and when we came back in the house was a pile of rubble and I was done.

I told the boys they could each eat a piece and I unceremoniously dumped the rest in the trash. Next year I think I'll try a kit...