Bike Rides, Cookie Dough, and Gingerbread Houses

We had a really fun day today!

First, Dear Hubby came up with the idea of going to the park, so we packed up and headed out to one of our favorite parks. Big Bro brought his bike and Little Bro rode his Big Wheel.
We rode all around the park and then, ventured into the neighborhood. The boys had a ball!
The neighborhood had a neat holiday display...a big decorated Christmas tree, a gilded gold sleigh, and over-sized, glittery presents on one side and then, next to the tree display, there was a huge silver Menorah. Most of the shop windows were nicely decorated too.
One of the shops had a massive Santa Playmobil figure. Both Little Bro and Big Bro were enamored with it. They LOVE playing with their Playmobil toys so this was a treat for them to see it.

We came home, got changed, and whipped up some sugar "cut out" cookie dough.
We let the dough chill today and then tomorrow, we will get busy with rolling and cutting out Christmas cookies.

Once the dough was in the fridg. chilling, we headed to a gingerbread decorating party.
Our neighbors went all out and had a wonderful party!
Each child at the party was given a gingerbread house to decorate.
All of the candies were carefully laid out on the tables.
The way that my neighbors did the party made it so nice for both children and adults.
It was really neat to watch all of the children as they decorated their houses.
Every child had a good time decorating and eating candy as they worked.
While some children had a definite plan for their home, others were more random with their decorating.
Little Bro enjoyed cutting up marshmallows and breaking Necco wafers into pieces.
He put them all over his house so that they almost look like slate.
Big Bro had fun decorating his home as well. He carefully carved a rectangle shape for the door and then, covered the outline of the door with candies. Big Bro tried to do a symmetrical roof at first but then, just got into adding candy in a more random fashion.
All of the houses turned out cute.
What a lovely party!

All in all, a great way to spend a Saturday!