Annual Gingerbread Competition

This is our second year doing our gingerbread competition with Ryan's family. It is so fun to see what everyone comes up with. There are a few rules. #1 you get one batch of specific gingerbread and all pieces need to be cooked prior to the competition. #2 everything you use must be edible. #3 There is a one hour time limit. While all the adults are working on their "creations", Ryan's Aunt and cousin help the kids do their own houses. It is so nice not to have to worry about them while we are concentrating soooo hard. Here are Paige and Brynn houses. Let me tell you, they love sprinkles!

This is Ryan's Dad's creation. This year he made a crab pot. This is in dedication to the pot Ryan and he lost crabbing last month. He painted his gingerbread before he baked it to make it black. Then he tied it all together with licorice. He even had bait hanging inside.

This is Ryan's sister Wendy's and her huband Whitney's Adobe house. She even had a little person and a cat laying on a haystack.

This is Ryan's sister JQ's and her husband Josh's house. They went with a traditional house this year and added things about their family. For instance, one of the gingerbread people has a round belly because she is pregnant.

This is Ryan's sister Jen's and her husband Mike's Tae Kwan Doe studio. They have punching bags and their push up mats. She also created her instructor and his wife.

This is Ryan's step-mom Debra's "Drive in". The movie playing is in memory of her Daughter Krista who lost her battle with cancer last month. The title is "Heaven Can't Wait". Just so you know, Debra had the picture scanned in a bakery onto some sort of edible cake topper.

This is Ryan's Uncle Dean's and his family's house. They made their barn and by far had the largest creation with the most candy. They did a great job. They had a whole six foot table covered in their supplies.

This is Ryan's mom's and her husband Bob's Moterhome. They are actually up visiting from Arizona and drove up in their moterhome. They did have a difficult time getting it to stay standing but it finally did. They even made all the grandchildren (7) and all their cats (6). My favorite thing is the wreath on the grill of the moterhome.

This is our creation. Last year we made a beach house and it took forever and was so big to trasport, so this year we wanted to do something easy. We decided to make a football stadium (an arial view). We only had two pieces of gingerbread we had to work with, so it made the stucture easy. I did underestimate the amount of time it would take me to do all of the "field work" though. Ryan was in charge of the stadium and the fans (sprinkles). I did the field. Ryan then, to finish it off, placed player on the field (more sprinkles). The only way to do this was to use tweezers. It was so funny to watch that process. We ended up using the whole hour.

Well, after everyone is finished and time is up, we all secretly vote for winners of different categories. We won the "That's cool lookin" award. Everyone ends up winning and the prize is a box of See's chocolates. Yum! I can't wait 'till next year's competition.