On Tuesday afternoon, it was time to bake the gingerbread and to begin the house. I felt like I was on one of those cooking challenge shows, with all the crazy ingredients assembled before me. Licorice whips, molasses, ginger, sprinkles, eggs, flour, cookies; plus rulers and knives and paper . . . It was wild. But first, the gingerbread. Katie and I made a triple batch in my mom’s huge KitchenAid mixer. Mia and Emma actually sat at the kitchen table and did homework while we did that, because it was the “boring part.” When it was time to roll out the dough, and cut and score it, they came and helped hold the templates—which I’d cut out last night—in place over the dough, and offered opinions on how things should be laid out on the pans. This was deemed the “hard part.” I only hoped it wouldn’t get much harder than this. Compared to gingerbread architecture, baking cupcakes is a sweet walk in the park. While we worked, we discussed the spreadsheets for the time capsule and made a plan to shoot the photos of our items on Saturday at my house, after my mom’s birthday party.
