This is the House that Grandma Built

A couple days after we returned from Florida, Grandma Pearson came out for a visit. It was so wonderful to have her here. She was more than willing to watch MVP while I worked from home during the day. I was able to get a lot done and get all caught up on work that had piled up while I was on vacation. Lately, MVP has not been very good at taking naps. He seems to think that two, 20- to 40-minute naps per day are all that he needs. On the one hand, as long as he continues sleeping through the night, I don't care what he does during the day. But on the other hand, it makes it really hard for me to get work done while having to keep an eye on him at the same time. This is especially hard now that he is getting mobile. He's been scooting around like a little combat soldier since we returned from Florida.

Several months ago, I came across an adorable felt playhouse designed to slip on over a kitchen table. I showed some pictures to Carol and she got excited about it too. So while she was here, we started working on a playhouse but decided to make it out of fabric since it will last a lot longer. There are still a few things we're working on, but this is what we have so far...

We will be attaching a huge button to the door as a doorknob. The flower stems have pipe cleaners in them and are detachable (thanks to Velcro). The mail box can also be opened and you can insert mail too. Now we know where to send all our bills.

The swing is certainly not able to support a kid, but hopefully stuffed animals will be the only ones to try it out--wishful thinking, I know. I might add a bird and nest to the tree as well.

The garden will soon have some carrots and a watermelon. There will also be more leaves with a second set of autumn-colored leaves. The lettuce and tree leaves are detachable.

This last side has a fire pit, but I'm thinking about changing it to a Weber grill. That way, he can grill up some of his veggies when the weather is nice.

One of the best features of this house is that it is expandable. There's a seam hidden by the roof shingles that is concealing another 5 inches of fabric so that if we ever get rid of this table, we can build a frame out of PVC pipe or something.

Maybe some day I will work on the inside of the house and make picture frames or have a deer's head mounted above a fireplace. I can't wait for MVP to get big enough to really play with it and let his imagination run wild.