Surprise, surprise!

Our Disneyland trip wasn't a complete surprise; the kids knew we were going sometime, just not exactly when. We readied ourselves for church, got in the car, and then let the cat out the bag. We did this by getting in the car with the kiddos' Disney hats on. Spencer figured it our right away, but poor very three year-old Mia, was completely consumed by the fact that I was wearing her hat. She kept exclaiming with a scowl on her face no less, "Hey, my hat! That my hat!" She cheered up quickly!

Toolbench work

The kids (especially Spencer) are really enjoying my Grandpa's old work bench we have in our garage. There's not much to destroy, which is good for everyone.
Hard work takes lots and lots of concentration. Notice the gaping mouth; that's a tell-tale sign.
Mia tags along too. She's not quite as interested as Spencer, but she stops and smiles for pictures, which I like.
Here she is shining up a garage find.
Did I mention the extreme concentration involved in this sort of work? Spencer's squeezing a rock. Good luck!
Mia's wrapping rocks and tying bows because she's my daughter. Enough said.

And the work begins...

We're ("we" being a term I use very loosely) building a playhouse for the kids for Christmas. After taking more than a few moments to think about our plan, we knew we'd have to spill the beans; we just don't have enough alone time to get the project completed without their knowing.

Work began with a full day clean-up. It took us more than seven hours to clean-up 10 years worth of pine needles, over-grown ivy, and because my Grandpa was green before it was popular, some (badly) repurposed concrete. We still have approximately seven years of our clean-up efforts still piled in the backyard.

The playhouse will be built in the very same spot my Grandpa built a playhouse for his granddaughters. So neat. I found a few traces of our playhouse while we picked up. One worth keeping is this old glass spice bottle. I remember my Grandma gave it to us to use in the playhouse for our meal "cooking". I have it sitting on my kitchen windowsill and we have plans to place it somewhere in our playhouse. I just love living in a home that has "fingerprints" of my loved ones.

Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head