I made gingerbread- I MADE GINGERBREAD!!!

just look at me! another post!!
i worked harder this weekend then i ever do in a 40 hour week- my feet even ached after all of this. but it was worth it! we made gingerbread houses with 8 of our friends and we made the gingerbread ourselves (janelle, amanda and i)!!! the recipes that we looked up on the internet all gave a level of difficulty and guess what it was for making gingerbread?- DIFFICULT- and that it was to be sure. but we tackled it. isn't it grand??
look at that!! we made it!!
we actually ended up making more gingerbread than we needed and used up all the molasses in it. i would have to say that the batch we made with a little bit of honey was far better than the one with a full cup of molasses- note to self. we mixed up the dough on saturday and then let it set in the fridge overnight (you really only need to leave it in for 2 hours). then on sunday we pulled it out and rolled it out on the back of a cookie sheet. we had to make a lot of houses so it was tricky cutting them all out and making sure they were the right size but thanks to amanda we got the pattern just perfect. this is definitely a task that cannot be done solo- we worked as a team. then all of our husbands got to do the fun part of making the houses with all of the colorful candy. but i am jumping the gun... ----matching game- which wife belongs to which husband???----...before we made the gingerbread houses we had a nice potluck dinner. i made the infamous pomegranate salad and we had enchiladas and baked chicken (amanda i still need that recipe- yogurt and ritz- who'd a thunk?), and potato salad- i love aissa because she doesn't put yucky onions in her salad, and rolls and....other stuff. so we ate all the good food and then had a great time putting these lovely houses together. I can't believe that it worked! and our house is still standing two days later!! the candy canes are melting because of the humidity but my goodness! it worked. look at that masterpiece!! can you see where we have picked off of it?
i taught juano how to do this... so so so much fun!! i love these guys!!