Gingerbread House Throwdown, Year Two

If you missed last year's epic showdown, you can read all about it here. This year, Team Awesome (Max and I) were out for revenge - we lost last year's contest, and weren't about to lose again. We plotted and planned ahead of time...we even made sure to get all of the red M&M's for our color-coordinated roof. Team Hug It Out, Bitch (Sam and Jeff) sat down at the table and came up with a plan on the fly - before we knew it, knives were out, holes were being cut into their house, and once again, Team Awesome ended up coming in second place. Booooo!

I think the important thing to remember is that we all had fun. We can't all be winners (or in Team Awesome's case, apparently we can never be winners), but we can start planning for next year's throwdown...third time has to be the charm, right? enjoy the memories we made.

Blogland, I present to you my family, our creations, and also why I don't think we will ever get a decent group picture:

Somebody ALWAYS has to be making a face...

Somebody else ALWAYS has to sneak in the shot...

Speaking of sneaking, that's the only way I can get a shot where no faces are being made!

Team Awesome's house in progress

Team Hug It Out, Bitch's creation - something about an earring-wearing mullet-man who was vomiting candy...with an innocent bystander on the side. Yeah, there's no sugar plum fairies in this household!

Team Awesome's sweet house. Much more inviting than that other one, dontcha think?

After the judging, I tried to get some more pictures. I told Jeff and Sam to scootch closer and put their heads together for the shot:

They ended up looking like conjoined twins!

Opera singers?

Maybe not...

"Be serious," I said!

Then I get this...didn't notice the special effects with the red jelly bean blood in his hand until I uploaded the pictures. This, ladies and gentlemen of blogland, is my almost 24-year-old-soon-to-be-college-graduate-son. The future of America!

On the other hand, Team Awesome was, well, awesome:

Max said to pose with our pinkies out. I did, then asked "why?" He said because we were classy, which cracked me up so much I had tears in my eyes:

Yeah, classy...NOT.

Thumbs up to the second place team!

To say that we are enjoying having the kids home from college is an understatement. This is what the holiday is all about for us - time spent together as a family. Merry Christmas to you and yours - have a wonderful weekend!