Just add water

When I was a little girl, I wanted a doll house more than I had ever wanted anything.  For Christmas one year I was given one, but it was aluminum with furniture and rugs and curtains all printed inside on the walls and floors.  I felt so selfish for being disappointed, but I was.  It was nothing like I had imagined it would be.

Flash forward "a few" years.  Francine calls to tell me she has a surprise for the kids when we come at Christmas.  It's a doll house.  The doll house of my childhood dreams.  Oh, it was so beautiful.  It is so beautiful. 

It's a little house that was given to a young girl by her mother years ago.  Not long after the gift was given, the girl's mother was found to have cancer.  She passed away, and the little girl's dream of her lovely doll house did too.  The house sat untouched for years, a painful reminder of all she had lost.  She couldn't fix it up without her mother, and she couldn't let it go, so she just held on to it.  But now she is a young woman, and though it was painful for her to say goodbye to the lovely little house that her mother gave her, she knew she was ready.  She just wanted to make sure that it would be played with by someone who would love it and take good care of it.  Francine had long known that I was looking for a doll house.  My children have spent hour after hour playing in Francine's sweet three story doll house. They are respectful and creative, and I love to see them play in it.  Every time we leave, Francine goes over to her doll house and looks to see what the kids have done in the doll house.  They rearrange the furniture, fold and unfold the blankets, and restock the cake case in the little ground-floor general store.  She is tickled by the chance to step into their little world.

Steph went with me to pick up the doll house because it didn't fit in the van with the whole family on board.  We enjoyed a lovely lunch with Francine and then loaded the house into the van.  It's actually pretty big, and is the reason we wanted to take down the huge fish tank to free up space.  It will take a while before we have collected cute furniture and interesting little objects to place on shelves.  Heck, it will be a while before we even have shelves, but I already have picked out the wallpaper, and I'm working out the electrical as well.  But the girls don't care about all of that.  They are having a ball in it with their horses, dinosaurs and legos.  That's the magic of being a child.

I know it is for them, but I am having as much fun with it as they are. 
It a dreamy little house.  Guy asked,

"If we water it, will it grow up to be a big house we can live in?"

Don't I wish!

Francine's doll house all decked out for Christmas

The general store

I love the tiny bottles of chillies and the itty-bitty tools.

Can you find the chips and salsa?

Can you find two little girls having the time of their lives?