here is what our farm looks like! for the most part. it's not totally to scale and it's actually a vision of what the future will look like because there is a hot tub and a few ponies romping around, and with the exception of the pink tractor, it is all edible! there are za'atar trees and matcha trees and heart-shaped jolly rancher windows... even a shameless gingerbread buick lesabre.

i spent more hours that i'm willing to admit on this, and if i had a dollar for every time eggboy conveyed that i was a lunatic in the process, i'd have enough to buy a real pony, but it was 100% worth every second just to see the looks on all of the eggs' faces when they saw it. eggboy's lucky that i didn't set this in the middle of our living room and scatter coconut flakes all over the floor to represent the wheat fields and sugar beet fields. i will save that for next year.

i'd like it to be known that i did not throw one frustration-induced tantrum during this whole process. that's probably a given because technically i am a grown-up, but i've got an awful track record (which in past years has resulted in having to construct a house of cardboard and glue through a sea of tears), so i am very proud of myself for this.

do you want to have a tantrum-free gingerbread house building experience? i have secrets for you over on food52! follow along this week with a series of three gingerbread house posts that cover: how to make rock hard walls that won't collapse, how to make icing that will dry like cement, and how to make fun little accessories like a blue raspberry hot tub and cylindrical pieces of gingerbread wall for a grain bin or silo. and you'll get a little tour of our farm in the process :)

go check it out!