Valentines Gingerbread house party

Hello everyone,  

We celebrated Valentine’s Day with a family gingerbread house party.

The kits were bought on clearance after Christmas for about $1.25 each.  

I didn’t know before I opened the boxes but some gingerbread houses need to assembled with frosting as glue- and it’s tricky. 

Other houses come all the assembled.

If I ever buy more kits,  I will only buy the assembled ones as they are so much easier and stress free.  The boxes are labeled but a quick way to discern the difference is the unassembled kits are in flat boxes and the assembled houses are in cube shaped boxes. 

All those kits,  we only had 3 preassembled houses 😱

Before the party,  we covered the tables with disposable tablecloths. 

And I opened every kit and threw away all the packaging.  

I bought a little extra candy and I asked the guests to bring candy too.  

Now on to the decorating. Some the children chose to work in pairs as they decorated. 

The preschoolers all had and needed an adult for assistance and supervision.  

The kits came with frosting bags but I didn’t put them out for children.  I made a big batch of royal frosting with meringue powder.  It made a fluffy frosting that I put in bowls and we used little plastic knives to spread the frosting on the houses.  I think spreading the frosting was fun and less aggravating for littles.  

All the decorated houses -quite an assortment, right? 

Below are our 8 grands who had the best time being together and creating.  

They range in age from 3 1/2 to just turned 11.  



 Happy Valentine’s Day everyone 

❤️ Rhonda 

Cake mix cookies

My husband was away almost 2 weeks so I thought cookies would help welcome him home.  And after not baking before Christmas,  fresh cookies sounded really good to me.  

Cake mix cookies are so easy and delicious 

Just use any flavor mix you like, 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of either oil or melted butter.  Add your choice of stir ins like baking chips, nuts, sprinkles

Then bake like any cookie recipe- 375 degrees for 9-11 minutes 

I used a yellow cake mix, butter, chocolate chips and a dash of vanilla 

Happy baking! 

❤️  Rhonda 

Hello

Hello everyone

I had intentions to share our Christmas decorations and baking here but I ended up sidelined with a torn hamstring.  I’m doing much better now and have to watch it but I’m happy to be able to walk almost pain free and with no aids.  

I didn’t do a single batch of Christmas baking.  Our desserts were store bought with a candy tray from a former neighbor and a buche de Noel baked by our daughter.  

We had 2 family Christmas gatherings in our home,  and afterward,  our home looked like it.  

So I made a new to do list and started working on things yesterday.

This may not all get done this week,  but I’ll do all I feel up to.  

several more of these tasks are completed, they just aren’t checked off in the photo.  


I did a good bit of coupon shopping in 2019.  So much so that my storage areas are plenty full.  For 2020,  I intend to take a break from most coupon shopping until our stockpile is used some.  

But I had some store money at CVS and Walgreens so I made short trips to both today.  

It seems foolish to let free store money expire.  

At Walgreens,  the pizzas were buy 1 get 1 free

The bags are buy 1 for $2.79, get 2 free. 

I used $20 in Walgreens points and paid $8.05 for all of the above.  I also ended up with $10 in points and $7 in register rewards that I was not expecting.  

About the Walgreens brand food bags,  this sale repeats often.  They also repeat similar sales for their brand of aluminum foil, paper plates and trash bags.  All of these are excellent quality products and much cheaper on sale than name brand products.  I actually like the Walgreens food bags better than Ziploc brand bags.  

At CVS,  I used $11 in extracarebucks from previous purchases and several coupons that printed when I scanned my CVS card at the CVS scanning machine.  I used NO newspaper or internet printable coupons.  

And I still did very well,  getting 5 boxes of cereal and 2 face moisturizers for $6.96.  

That’s all the news I have for now.  

I really do want to keep blogging,  but sometimes things just get in the way.  

Thanks for stopping by today ❤️