Hot Glue your Gingerbread House

We buy Gingerbread house kits on sale after Christmas & save them for the next year. In my opinion, a year later, they are not a tasty treat. However, these kits make it possible for someone like me to have a lot of fun with my 5 kids. Even with the kit, the frosting "mortar" was always the challenge. So a few years ago, I decided to try a glue gun. Voila! With a hot glue gun, we've made some great gingerbread homes! It has even become a tradition for my husband to use Pez candies to make a brick chimney! We'll use Dots candy for very colorful roof shingles. Of course, we pipe the frosting on "for show", but it is really the hot glue that holds it all together!

Defrosty the Snowman

My kids had the best time making Defrosty the Snowman.  I found the instructions in an old issue of Family Fun magazine. 
This was so much fun.  Here is a link to the instructions from Family Fun Magazine.  Since we have a peanut allergy in our home, we couldn't use the common brand of chocolate morsels found at most grocery stores.  Instead, we used Enjoy Life's mini morsels which are dairy, nut, and soy free.  We also used orange tootsie rolls for the noses - we molded them like clay.  Other than Jelly Belly's candy corn, I haven't found any other brands of candy corn that are not manufactured in a plant that processes peanut.  This was a project all of my children enjoyed - 5 kids aged 5, 7, 9, 11, & 13.