Homemade Gingerbread House Lawn Decoration

The entire idea came from the shape of the back of my sons baby glider chair. What a perfect shape for a hobbit door. There was no "plan" or measurements or anything to tell me how to do this or what to use. I just went off my gut and own creativity. I even searched Pinterest and never found anything as awesome as I wanted. So I made it up myself.

My Mission:
1) Use anything I can find in the garage, and repurpose it to build this Ginger Bread House of Awesomeness.
2) Make it completely collapsable for storage and moving purposes.
3) Spend as little as possible, out of pocket, so my husband doesn't think I've lost my mind.

Here is the final product. Well as close to final as it got for pictures.

                                               

Some things I used along the way...

 Remember the OLD christmas ornaments that were styrofoam covered in string? When you take the string off you have a perfect little ball. Cut in half, paint with crafters paint and spray with clear coat and you have: Jawbreakers! My kids did the multi colored ones.

These aren't on the actual house, but where used in the walkway up to the door. Those little dog food containers that I had saved a TON of because I just knew I would find something to do with them other then organize my screws, nails and craft supplies. Decoupage, glitter and clear coat. Adjusted the lights to be in the order of color I wanted them and altered the lids to have room for the string lights wire and TADA! Gummy candy lights. I think I made about 99 of these. I start to loose count and actually realized at about 40 that you don't even need the glitter. They look just as cool at night without it. 

These are those little floor tiles with the letters on them that kids play areas have. I sure had a TON of those from when my son was younger. We had hard floor in our house when he was a baby and I basically covered EVERYWHERE in these.

Covered in dollar store fabric lined table cloths. 

Looks like taffy to me! It need MORE. This was NOT enough, I didn't want it to appear like a little house, I wanted in to be OBVIOUS it was supposed to look like candy. So I brainstormed.















Here are some pictures of me building it along the way. Each step was figured out as I got to it.

I definitely didn't get this far in a day. This took quite some time to complete. Notice the arch for the door? That's the back of my glider chair. You can see the from and back are the baby crib and the cross supports are the PVC as well as the roof trusses. 

"Mommy, mommy, mommy…can I help?"

"Mommy, you build this house for ME!!!" 

It may look like a box of junk to you, but to me, it could be ANYTHING!

 WORK in progress. The roof took quite a while as I was figuring out the best things to use. I ended up using screening material I had, duck tape and some RV roof sealer (clear) that I had left over to keep the taffy attached and we able to fold it for storage. You will see that more a few pictures down.

I used my old gazebo cover, cut it to size, spray painted with some brown I had for the walls and staple gunned it to the stutter. I had to make sure I did it in a way that it would be able to fold up and come apart. 

Getting FANCY! The Gum drops above the front door are baby food starts painted and glittered. I adhered their lids to the structure with the white caulk I used as the royal icing.

I scored some dollar store holiday ornaments on clearance. I know, my jaw dropped too. I had NO IDEA Dollar Tree did clearance. Anyway, some were only $.12 a piece, I used them as empelishments.

LOVE the roof and the "icing" detail. 

The last three days have been exhausting and that's putting it nicely. My body has been pushed to maximun exertion limits, but I will never let that stop me. If you now me, I don't let much stop me.

Here are my top 10 thoughts on this process and the last 3 days:
 1) My children aren't adjusting super great to all of the life changes, lots of crying and whining and arguing. Guess they enjoy change just as much as their Mommy does? In case you weren't aware, I'm not a fan of change. Unless of course it's in my physically, mental or intellectual abilities in a positive way. I am a creature of routine as are my tiny humans.
 
2)  Thank goodness for my Mom and stepdad Bill and Mother-in-law and her BF Greg for coming here to unload the PODS. Those two men worked harder in these three days then Dave and I did loading the PODS in the first place. I was so fatigued by the time they got here, they really saved the last two days!

3) Having a house with multiple stair cases greatly increases the level of difficulty of a move! Who knew? Oh, that's right, every military spouse I knew that said I was crazy for doing a DITY (Do IT Yourself) Move.

4) Every one of those military spouses that said I should have the movers do the job were 100% correct. We were perfectly capable when we did the move to CA, doing it ourself, but logistics of that process have changed in 2.5 years and yeah, never again. No seriously. I will NEVER do a DITY again. Ever.

5) Thanks to my sister in law Chrissee Bee for coming and essentially meeting her niece Lillian for the first time, and spending time with both of our children. It warmed my heart to see how much you've grown up. And yes, my pink hair is merely extension and not "real" (hahaha).

6) A big thanks to my big sister, Megan Costa, and my bro in law, Frank P. Costa II, for letting us crash at their place for the last few days and for helping with the kids at bedtimes etc. Because, seriously, being able to shower in your fancy pants bathroom allowed me to have a few moments of feeling like I was in a resort bathroom. I think I even giggled over that thought a few times while flopping around your gigantic bubbly tub in amazement at the amount of chill room in there (which I used for stretching my soar muscles). Legit, I totally stretched in the tub. It was glorious, and will likely happen again on some random day when I'm at your place. ;)

7) Yes, again, all of my lovely friends (and husband) were correct, we have "too much stuff" for being a military family. Lucky for me, in a few short weeks we will be a "civilian" family and we will no longer be "free to move about the country" when the duty calls, therefore, I reserve the right to have as much "stuff" as I want. But, I do admit when I am wrong, and while I didn't say I was correct, I will say that my friends were. Everyone who said I should have just purged, purged, purged is on my genius list. ;) (P.S. I spelled genius wrong and autocorrect fixed it. Gave me a chuckle).

8. I also reserve the "right" to hire movers the next time we move. I don't care if we are moving up the street, or 100 miles…I will never load a dresser or washing machine or freezer again, and have come to understand why so many military families just sell their appliances before moving.  LEGIT, that washer was almost put on the curb because it was such a beast to move! P.S. I'm officially donating that bad boy to the rental property we are calling our new digs for a while, because I will NEVER move it again. Let's hope it doesn't magically stop working in the next few months, but hey, if it does…I'm totally paying Lowes to remove that bad boy. So I still won't have to move it. Winning.

9. Moving without your spouse there SUCKS.
Example A: I called Dave "Hey, where do you want this super heavy guitar amp".
His reply "Our bedroom".
Insert quiet pause. Then my reply "Garage, I can give you garage. That's about it. I'm not carrying that to our bedroom!"
Hope he an find it when he eventually gets here. It's in that massive pile of boxes somewhere.

10. In addition to reserving the right to hire movers next time, I have also predetermined with the hubs that the next time "we" move, I'm going to go away for a few days with the kids. This will be his chance to plan, orchestrate, and manage a perfectly successful move, while the tiny humans and I take a "holiday". After all, he's the Mac Daddy at Transportation and Logistics Management…so I think he can swing this. ;)

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Post by Rachel Duclos.

Gluten Intolerance - My Personal Product Review of GlutenEase by Enzymedica

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I promise, I wasn't just trying to get a "Big Head"

     Ahhh. A day in the life of a woman with attention deficit disorder. This morning I realized I was not focused today and getting to that point was going to be a fight. An internal war of what I need to do versus what my mind wanted to do.
I wasn't getting much of anything done, whether it be house work, business work or blog work.  I felt compelled to find a picture online that represented how I felt this morning. Something showing the level of un-organization that was in my own head. Because, wasting time searching Google Images was exactly what I was supposed to be doing wasn't it? Wait, what was I supposed to be doing today? Uh oh, where's my planner? Oh yes, back to the task here.

     In my efforts searching Google Images I came across a very cool picture someone else, a blogger with ADHD, had created and I felt drawn to it.  I read his post, and I had to find out how he did it.  He used a website called Wordle.net.  Here is Worlde.net's description of what their website is about:

                      "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The    clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

     Well isn't that just perfect. I had recently wanted to update my cover photo on Facebook to include key words about myself. Much like one of the inspirational woman in my life had done with her Facebook picture. See her Facebook picture here (https://www.facebook.com/LifewithTheCarrs?fref=ts). Her name is Tarah Carr and she is a source of inspiration and motivation for me. Someone I look up to. I'm only 99% sure she won't mind me referencing her Facebook page in my blog, but if I am incorrect and it's the 1% then I will remove the link.  So, what do I put on my picture? I just didn't know what to put on my picture. Using Wordle was the perfect option for me. But, where would I get the words from?

     Then it came to me, I would get them from YOU. From anyone on my Facebook page. Whether they've known me my entire life or have yet to meet me.  So, I posted this status about four hours ago.

     Yes, I did in fact tag some family members, many of which don't get on social media daily, like myself (and 95% of the world), and have yet to see it.  I got about 14 responses, ok make that 15, one more just rolled in. Alas, I don't maintain a high level of patience so I couldn't wait for their response. The Wordle just HAD to be made right now. After all, it was the only thing the entire day that I was able to focus on.

     Some of the 15 people who responded, I didn't expect. Ok, so just about all of them, other then the classic "you're my awesome wife" kind of comment from the husband. After all, if he didn't post something like that, he may not have gotten dinner tonight. Hah! Just kidding. 

     There were people who responded that I had no idea ever read anything I put on Facebook. There are people who I had no idea I ever touched in any way. I learned some wonderful things that people think, see and feel about me. Maybe some things that I often forget about myself. That is why I do something to "grow" every single day.

     I am a work in progress, I'm working every day to grow.  One of my weaknesses is that I, often times, lay my value in the hands of what others believe about me. It's usually when they are not someone who sees what the kind people who commented see. 

    Today, I learned something very valuable: sometimes it's the hands and hearts, of those around us, that have the power to raise us up and be strong in a moment of weakness. That is why you need to CHOOSE who you allow to be a part of the world around you. If someone is there that doesn't see value in you, that can't contribute to your "Wordle", in a good way, then maybe their ticket to the "Awesome Show" needs to be revoked.  

     Thank you to everyone who took a minute of their time to comment on my post. Thank you for reminding me of one of the many reasons I work to grow and become a better person. Thank you for opening up and being honest about what you see in me.  Those are the things I will cherish and hold on to when a moment of weakness or self doubt arrises, but know this, you can always turn to me to raise you up, not matter what state I am in. 

I learned all of this today, because I had a bad case of ADD this morning and I wanted to share that with you…mind blown.

I have gained 12 pounds! SAY WHAT?!!! Oh heck no!

I have gained 12 pounds. No it's not a typo. It's not one of those silly Facebook games where you have to post something off of a list just for commenting. It's the truth. I haven't wanted to face it for a while. Just six weeks ago I was wearing jeans from college and now, I don't know WHAT to cover myself with.  Why did I gain 12 pounds? It wasn't because I didn't workout. It wasn't because I over ate and consumed thousands of calories a day. It's because of three medical reasons, that I live with every single day, that took control.  The first and for-most villain is Post Part-um Depression. 

Yes, I know my daughter is two and a half, but what you may or may not know, is that I have been treated for Post Part-um this entire time. Not because the Dr's thought I needed the medicine anymore, but because the withdrawal symptoms are so severe they refused to let me off of it. Why not, that sounds like craziness right? Because my husband's job took us 3000 miles from family and he was at risk for having to leave with a few hours notice for up to 45 days.  It's just not a good idea to go through that kind of withdrawal when you have the potential for being the only parent around to care for your two small children.  So I waited. I waited years to get off of Effexor. Finally the time had come. 

Not sure how much you know about Effexor, but google it. It's horrible. Withdrawal was comparable (from what I've read) to getting off of crack cocaine. I was in bed for days. Unable to move, having the full body shakes, vertigo, vomiting and those are just the side effects I can type about.  Could this have been worth getting treated for? Part of me wonders if I could have just avoided it all together. But the fact is that I couldn't have avoided it. I know what it feels like to have post part-um depression and the feelings that go with it. I never wanted to feel that way again.  No matter what. 

Now is when the "no matter what" comes around.  I've since been put on a medication called Lexapro to get me "through the withdrawal" from the Effexor.  The last few months have been challenging. Especially when I have worked hard and committed my life to improving my health and fitness as well as inspiring those around me. To have gained back 12 pounds of weight because my body is taking control feels un-acceptible to me. I am not 100% sure how to handle it. All I can do is continue to eat healthy, continue to BE healthy and get up and press play…What's your excuse?  

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