Without further adu, the Gingerbread House. Or is it a Military Diorama? From the twisted wreckage of summers playing WWII [we didn't play "army" - that was for kids who watched GI Joe, who weren't nearly as literal, and who hadn't seen The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Twelve O'clock High, Von Ryan's Express, Kelly's Heroes, Combat!, Tora! Tora! Tora! and Patton] colliding with winters building gingerbread houses out of Graham crackers under the watchful eye of jean-jumpered homeschool moms (and playing Battle of the Bulge in the snow).
And to be fair, while the idea had germination in my mind from too many model magazines and books like this one, I had plenty of help from Matt, Emily, and two other parties, both of whom didn't seem eager to take any credit for this. Maybe it's because one is a lawyer and the other a conspiracy theorist. Dunno.
Anyway, gaze upon the marvel that is the bombed out gingerbread house Matt built. Seriously, it looks right out of WWII.
And that's the gingerbread house. Yeah, that's it.
Well, there was the rest of the diorama. Here is a guy repelling onto the scene.
Yeah, he's repelling. What? I didn't mention we had a helicopter?
And eight tiny reindeer. Well, seven, after that turncoat Prancer gave up Santa. [We had to do something, JoAnn Fabric only had seven reindeer ornaments]
Mother Nature has not left reindeer without natural defenses. Here several reindeer are attempting to retrieve the M2 machine gun from the crashed sleigh, and Donner lines up the bazooka.
This is one of my favorites. Each of the reindeer had to be modified with a Dremel tool and then reglued into suitable battle poses. I gave Blitzen the BAR. Because BARs are cool. And so is Blitzen.
It was funny, a lot of people studied our work for a long time, yet a good number of them managed to miss the helicopter. And yes, there was a pilot in the helicopter. Some people seemed suprised, but we weren't going to miss that.
Lastly, here is the whole thing again. This pic does the best justice to the beautiful wall Matt and Emily built. Sadly, I didn't get a great shot of the cool crashed sleigh Matt built up out of gingerbread.
5 comments:
I'm assuming this creation is the work of Noah - I just can't picture Julie staying up late to to scar her children for life. J/K! And the reference to "jean-jumpered homeschooling moms" gave it away. I'm sure she's beyond proud! Did you win something?
When my husband sees this, he's so going to want to be your friend Noah - so he can play with your helicopter!
Wow and Wow! Nice work Noah - I liked the attention to detail (specifically the Humvee being pushed through the "snow" so that the tires have some white all the way around them, and the tire tracks show). I also think it's funny you had to cut up the reindeer and glue them back together to get more "suitable battle positions"... it gives it that authentic look - even if it is reindeer holding guns (the same kind Bonnie and Clyde used). Well, thanks for posting these, I've been anxiously waiting to see them - and can say they were worth the wait.
Rachel, just so you know, Noah has a lot more toys than just the helicopter. Did you see the army guys and humvees? All Noahs. He has several boxes in the basement of toys that he won't let the boys look at or touch.
Thanks for the positive comments.
The helicopter is acutally Matt's, as are a few of the soldiers. The two Humvees are mine. I snagged one on ebay and one on clearance at Target.
And I never said I'd never let the boys play with my toys, they just need to get to the point when the toys become age appropriate.
Soon I will take his Thompson and return to the Playmobil "Santa" his pirate hat and sword, and he can join the pirate crew the boys have put together.
This is awesome. And so funny. Your "jean jumpered homeschool mom" phrase made me laugh out loud.
Just saw your comment come in on my blog here and wanted to let you know that yes, you got the right city for where we live. The hills here have really never freaked me out too much until the incident I recently posted about. Now I'm pretty sure I'll be avoiding downtown for awhile. My sister is so scared of the hills here that she won't even come to visit me in the winter (she lives a couple hours west of here) even though I insist I'll do all the driving.
I can understand your fear of the bridges too. But, since I go over one of them on almost a daily basis, I'm getting used to it. For some reason, though, every time I cross it, I imagine the whole bridge tumbling into the water below and I get a mini anxiety attack. Ahhh!
Your dream sounds awful -- I sure hope cars can't flip over backwards but I'm sure I'll be thinking of that the next time I climb a hill. : )
Be sure and do visit our area though in the summer time because it's quite pretty then and the hills are less intimidating without the snow and ice on them.
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