{"id":22571,"date":"2012-12-24T13:56:11","date_gmt":"2012-12-24T18:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/?p=22571"},"modified":"2012-12-24T14:09:42","modified_gmt":"2012-12-24T19:09:42","slug":"personal-post-2nd-annual-boys-vs-girls-cousin-gingerbread-decorating-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/personal-post-2nd-annual-boys-vs-girls-cousin-gingerbread-decorating-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal Post: 2nd Annual Boys vs. Girls Cousin Gingerbread Decorating Contest!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I LOVE that Rebecca thought this up last year. It’s a tradition that I hope we will continue forever and ever. I seriously want to do it when they’re all off at college and come home for Christmas break. I want the designs to get more and more elaborate as the years go by. I want SERIOUS planning and effort to go into it when they’re older. Think Food Network Grove Park Inn Gingerbread House Competition. I’m serious, I love a good heated challenge, and I want this one to get more and more intense as the years go by. And if I’m being totally honest and laying it all out there on the table, one day I even want to see their kids competing against one another. I LOVE these seven children. I am SO SO thankful that God has called us all to live in Florence and raise our little families here. These cousins are SO incredibly tight. Almost more like brothers and sisters. It’s a beautiful relationship that I don’t take for granted for one single second.<\/p>\n

This year, like last year, there was no real planning or scheming involved. We simply bought the little Aldi kits and a few extra bags of candy and let them go at it. This year, they’re really all still pretty little. Even the oldest one is still young enough to have a hot chocolate mustache. But I will say that we saw some small improvements in building over last year, showing that they are in fact…getting older. The boys constructed a car out front of their house this year. The girls made a tire swing in their side yard. Well, the older boys and older girls. The two babies were more interested in shoveling sweets into their little mouths as fast as they could. It was a fun afternoon. =)<\/p>\n

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The trash talk starts flying from the mouths of the boys as soon as the competition starts. It makes CC laugh. It makes CB mad. =)<\/p>\n

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Tate uses the cookie platter as his personal plate. Take a bite, put it back. Choose another, put that one back. And so on…<\/p>\n

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Can’t stop laughing at her shirt. Not sure why I find it so funny.<\/p>\n

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SERIOUS work.<\/p>\n

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Poor Em was sequestered on the stairs due to an animal hospitalization that occurred earlier in the month. NO people food for this pup.<\/p>\n

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Lilah Drew stayed up on that table, after another handful of “cake” aka anything sweet.<\/p>\n

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Pitiful.<\/p>\n

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Making the car for their driveway…<\/p>\n

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Seriously, she couldn’t stop with the candy!<\/p>\n

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LOVE them!! Boys’ final product. In true boy fashion, they said that there HAS to be a winner. No ties because that’s not fair.<\/p>\n

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Girl house!!<\/p>\n

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So Fun. Can’t wait for Gingerbread Houses 2013!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I LOVE that Rebecca thought this up last year. It’s a tradition that I hope we will continue forever and ever. I seriously want to do it when they’re all off at college and come home for Christmas break. I want the designs to get more and more elaborate as the years go by. I...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"pp_embeds":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,30,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ac-life","category-lifestyle","category-our-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22571"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22618,"href":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22571\/revisions\/22618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmsmithportraits.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}