Gingerbread house

With some assistance from my mini chef extraordinaire we whipped up some batter to construct a gingerbread house.Ruhi and Anisa we most obliging when it came time to roll out the dough and were delighted to use the offcuts and scraps for their own purposes. They made dolphins and horses while Bayan made 'shapes'. Everything was promptly eaten so their are no photos except for this one of the unadorned house before the kids were set loose to decorate it.Our house, as you can see, has two stories and windows this year. We encountered, as you can also see, structural difficulties involving miscalculations and more royal icing. But we won't talk about that. Instead lets talk about the excellent use I found for much of our unused Halloween candy.The kids jabbed (I mean positioned) jelly beans along the eaves and used hardened chewy candies to decorate the center of the roof and help fill in some gaps (more miscalculations or perhaps shrinkage during baking. Yes, that must be it.) Anisa color coded little lollies and Ruhi used them to make an intricate path leading up to the door.We used candy canes to make a fence and a marshmallow puff of smoke for the chimney and the kids went to town decorating the rest of the roof and environs with gummy lollies and sprinkles. Once again this dwelling will not be consumed, but will have served it's purpose well, as Thanksgiving has once again been bumped back to a later date just to make sure that everyone is truly well before we have anyone over, so by the time we are done it will have graced our table as a centrepiece for over two weeks.For the record I am not completely heartless about the deep sense of loss coming from tossing out this uneaten delicacy so I have ferreted away a few treats to be shared among the children who are joining us for our 'Thanksgiving' lunch. Fresh, wrapped, and far more hygienic plus they are sweet and sugary and are only available once a year. To say nothing of the fact that they would be far more healthy than attempting to ingest this (or any portion thereof) gingerbread house.