Spongebob: We Have A Problem!

A few weeks go I bought what I thought would be a fun project to do with the kids--a twist on the traditional gingerbread house--it was Spongebob's Pineapple House!

The kids were all very excited to do the project, and since it was -7 degrees (that's NEGATIVE SEVEN!) this morning, I decided it would be a good day to hunker down inside and make a gingerbread pineapple.

Just a quick question--has anyone out out there ever actually had fun assembling a gingerbread house? Anyone? Because I'm pretty sure that I never had--and this was no exception.

First I made the frosting--which is always a wild goose chase of how much water to add or not add to get the proper consistency. The directions said five tablespoons--it was still in powder form. Then it says to add more water by quarter teaspoon...Ten million trips back and forth between mixer and sink, the frosting was ready.

Now onto the assembly of the pineapple. It seemed simple enough--you were supposed to stack the gingerbread discs (which were supposed to be numbered 1-10) in numerical order with frosting in between.

So, but, we had two each of one, two and seven and then a few random numbers. It made no sense at all!

Not to mention the very conspicuous absence of the cookie part that makes up the leafy portion of the pineapple.

So far, Spongebob' s house was an uneven topless blob.

As we figured out how to best stack the cookies to resemble the shape of a pineapple, it became obvious that this was going to be a tiny little house--not like the tall shapely pineapple pictured on the box:

See how the Spongebob in the picture looks relatively small compared to his house? In our scenario, the Spongebob decoration looked like a giant looming over his puny pineapple.

While I was figuring out how to make the house taller and how to fabricate some greenery for the top, Pickle decided to fill her Hello Kitty boots with a whole box worth of Kleenex...

Ultimately, the kids abandoned the project and I was alone in the kitchen making a gingerbread pineapple. I beefed up the frosting between the cookies to give the house a little more height and used pretzel sticks drizzled with green frosting for the pineapple leaves.

Ta da!!Gooser and Teddy eventually wandered back into the kitchen and added some candies, but this was basically a solo project.

The next time I think it's a good idea to make a gingerbread house...remind me not to!!