This season, we discovered fondant. And for big time, PlayDough lovers, this is a wonderful thing to know about when you are making a gingerbread house. Some orange fondant came in the haunted gingerbread house that I bought at Michaels, and we enjoyed it sooooo much that we bought another package of orange and one of white.
It isn't cheap like Playdough, but it is worth the cost, because the grand fairies worked with it for hours and hours.
The house came assembled!!!!!! That was a huge plus for me, as the contractor for building the home, I'm gingerbread impaired and often struggle to raise the roof. (I've been known to resort to hot glue in the past)
This was also our first Halloween house, and while it was very fun to do, I discovered that the black and purple icing "glues" are a horrid mess to work with and the first batch of orange fondant ended up sorta grey from messy icing fingers.
Also, there wasn't nearly enough candy in the box to finish decorating the creation. At least not to our standards… we are big believers in GAUDINESS!
So, after a couple hours working on the house at the table, and smearing black icing everywhere, I smartened up and the next day when we finished the house, I had the kiddos spend time making their fondant creations and letting them dry before gluing them to the house with the goopy icing.
Sugarwings threw another Arabella Cinderella party to welcome her sister back from her trip out East to be with her mommy, and the gingerbread house made an ideal centerpiece for the table.
I rented Cinderella ( It is a beautiful movie, Rose and Rob Stark make a lovely couple,and I was glad to see that Rob's wedding went a lot better on this show than on Game of Thrones) and the grand fairies had a tea party breakfast watching the show. They spent most of the rest of the day making fondant pumpkins and ghosts in front of the TV, since the room was set up so festive, and we wanted to take advantage of the decor.
Sugarwings had made princess posters on Disney's online game page, printed them, and taped them all around the room to surprise her sis. Then, she set the table for breakfast and called her sister into the room for a surprise party.
I'd say the girl has a flair for hosting a stylish bash.
We will miss our tiny Dewdrop when she heads back to her Mommy. But like we tell her, we are so happy that she gets to be with both us and with her Mommy who she loves so much.
And we never cry about her leaving ( at least not in front of her). She is such a trooper and stays cheerful about it all. I have a feeling that having parties thrown for her doesn't hurt at all. 
We have a photo album of her mother and siblings who are not with her, and keep it near her bed, to look through whenever she is feeling lonely for them.
And when she is away from us? I have blog posts full of pictures of her to look at and remember our fun while she was here. I hope that her other family enjoys the posts too.