OK. This one may be better than mine, but they cheated.

Kevin and I were talking about finishing the gingerbread houses and I mentioned that the White House does one.  It is a replica of the White House all done in gingerbread which is amazing enough, but what I didn't realize is that you can see inside the house into rooms in the White House.

Here is a link to a time-lapse video of the building of the White House's gingerbread house

White House's Gingerbread House Building

Amazing!

The hardhats at Taurus are back on

As Dave says, now that you are finished with the first 80%, you need to get started on the last 80%.  This is even true for Gingerbread Houses.  Now that the initial construction and decoration has been completed, we find ourselves with even more work than we originally did.

Kevin's house side of the roof has been completed with the "lilly pads" that we saw started earlier.  Check it out.

Also featured in the picture above, is the new back deck constructed from Skittles.  Tasty.

Kevin has also been working on the front lawn.  Check out his snow drifts.  All done without the huge marshmallow mess I had.

The fencing he put on his front yard is sooooo cute.  In the picture below you can see the little heart patterns that are created with mini candy cane.

The front and back of Cailean's house has been shingled.  They look like color coordinated fish scales.  Stunning.

I love the pane windows in the back. Rumor has it that Cailean is working in some special additions with imported materials.  I am looking forward to seeing the new additions.

Sergio has been working on a Christmas light display on his house.  So very clever!  Check it out.

I can't wait to see that the other roof is going to look like.  From the materials to the left, it looks like candy corn is going to play a big role.

I have been working on landscaping the surrounding land to my little house.  Around the entire house, I have added pretzel fencing.  In the front, I have added a roaring bon fire. I hope to put my people around there.  I wouldn't want them to get too cold.  On the side, I added some mature marshmallow bushes with Christmas lights.

In the back, I had a candy cane porch.  All around, we had gotten a dusting of snow.  Being it is the bay area, I am sure that they will close the schools and we will have no work at Taurus.

Things are being to ramp up here again to get things completed.  As Kevin says, we are on a deadline.  We are all hoping to get a peek of Dawn, Debbie, and Steve's house.

A Florida House

So as we were discussing the different houses in one of our meetings, Vicky mentioned that 'We must be closer to Vegas than we thought."  We then laughed about how Debbi's house would have neon signs everywhere and showgirls in front of it.  That's when I got the idea that my house should be a Florida house.  As you notice, the front is nothing special, lots of green, thick coarse grass in the front yard.

But being a Florida house, it's the back of the house that makes it special!

Here we have a wonderful oasis of refreshing candy for a hot day!   Notice the little Sour patch people sitting poolside in their lounge chairs with a nice cold drink.  The Gingerbread Man who of course has already been cooked far too long, chooses instead to relax on a raft in the pool.  Of course, being Florida, you can't forget the palm trees!

The kids and I really had a fun time making it.  Even my teenage son was having fun although he would never admit it.   Of course, as soon as I took the pictures, they started eating it with the palm trees being the first victims. 

Leah has a team helping her!

Leah, her boys and their boy scout troup worked on her gingerbread.  She did the gingerbread house with the boys.  At her boy scout meeting, they worked on graham cracker houses.  So we she has new buildings in her complex--dog house and storage shed.

Check it out.

Back:

The team:

The outsourcing group:

What candy left over?  Wrong.

Leah and her group are getting ready to decorate their tree.  I guess they do things big at their house.

Day 2 - Redwood City Houses

We are now armed with more pastry bags and lots more icing.  All of the activity done on day one is set in stone.  The icing is hard as a rock!  I guess now it would be obvious if I ate one of the little peppermint circles off my house.

Sergio wasn't able to join us in day two of the gingerbread project here in Redwood City, but Cailean, Kevin and I worked on our houses again.  

Cailean made great progress on the roof and is making her house more beautiful. Check out the red icicles on the roof line.  Very clever.

I decided to thatch my house after seeing a number of houses in Ireland with thatched roofs.  I used mini-bite frosted shredded wheat.  These have a cinnamon frosting and smell divine!  I tiled the front porch with little sugar discs which taste nasty (both Kevin and I agree on this fact).

Kevin did an elaborate tiling job on his roof.  This side is using one pattern and the other side will sport a different pattern.  Check it out.

To the right of his house, you can see the pieces (the little lily pads) he is going to use for the other side of the roof.  Check out the candy corn in the front of the house.  I bet you thought that Halloween candy was obsolete.  Nooooo...we reuse/recycle here at Taurus.

The great smells of gingerbread, cinnamon, and sugar assault your nose any time you go into the kitchen for coffee or a soda.  So far all of have been able to avoid the temptation of breaking a piece off the house and eating it.

Finally on the support call today, we heard from Leah that her house arrived.  Can't wait to get pictures!

Day 1 here at Redwood City

Sergio, Kevin, Cailean and I had to make a choice as to which kit we were going to use.  Kevin and I chose the simple A frame.  Sergio and Cailean went for the more traditional four wall affair.  Cailean and Sergio's came with frosting, but Kevin and I had to make our own. Sergio's and Cailean's kits came with a tree, chimney, and two gingerbread people.  Kevin and I got sugar people/dog and a tree with ours.

In case, your gingerbread house needs more frosting - here is a link to the recipe, we used:  

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/royal-icing-recipe/index.html

Onto the important part, decoration.  Here I think a picture is worth a thousand words.  Here is Cailean's first day's progress.  

Here is Sergio's first day's progress.

Here is my first day's "progress"

And putting us all to shame, here is Kevin's gingerbread house.

Challenge's Day 1:

1. Cailean and Sergio both struggled with their icing and some cracks that came with from holding the roof on.
2. I had icing everywhere - hair, clothes, fingers, but this seemed to a personal problem.
3. From the loss of materials due to shrinkage (Kevin!), we are going to need to get more materials and make more frosting.

Gingerbread Houses - Start your engines

Hi, all you Taurus creative people.  We have sent a gingerbread house kit to each person within Taurus for some community fun.  We thought being that we are unable to work on a project in person together, we could do so remotely.  This blog will be the place where you can come and check out each others progress and ideas.