Little House In The Living Room

Hello again everyone, let's all take a deep breath together. This has been an exhausting string of blogs for us to write in such a short amount of time. I'm sure you're all just as exhausted after reading all of these blogs, since you're all out of practice with the blog hiatus that we had been on. We are now up to this past Saturday (Yes, Saturday, September 8th!!) We are all caught up!! WOO_HOO!!!!!


Saturday began bright and early as Emily & I were going "shopping" with Grandma Kathy & Auntie Mandy. We were heading out to the Dupage County Fairgrounds for the semi-annual Mothers' Clubs resale extravaganza. There are 3 Mothers' Clubs that all get together at the fairgrounds and have a HUGE garage sale/flea market with gently used baby, toddler, and children's items. We learned about these sales when Steve & I discovered we were pregnant. Some friends of Grandma Kathy's told her about them; so did some of Auntie Mandy's co-workers now that I'm thinking about it. Anyway, we started going to them last September. Since Auntie Mandy is no longer working weekends, this was going to be her first time coming with us to one of these events, and she was really looking forward to it after hearing all about them this whole time. Daddy usually went in her place, but decided to opt out this time and took advantage of the day to do some napping, organizing, cleaning, and then went to Grandma Kathy's to make us all dinner for when we got home!! Yay, Daddy!!


Grandma Kathy & Auntie Mandy pulled into our driveway early in the morning. The sale started at 8:00 a.m. and the longer you wait to get there, the lower the quality of stuff there is to choose from. We were hoping to find some decent gently used clothing items for fall/winter and some new toys for Emily. When we got to the sale, Emily decided to spend her time in the Snugli (TM) so that Mommy could have her hands free and Emily could still see what was happening around her. We checked out all 3 buildings and found some really great deals. Emily was very excited about what she saw us carrying and couldn't wait until she had the opportunity to explore our purchases a little closer. She was especially excited about one particular item, a really awesome Fisher Price "playhouse" that Mommy spotted under a table . . .


. . . it is here that we need to back track a few months. One day this past spring, Steve & I brought Emily to visit her Great Grandpa Ray. When we got there, we discovered Steve's cousin Sharon, her husband Brett & their little boy Charlie. It was really fun to get to see them and do some catching up. Charlie got to see Emily and get more used to the idea of having a little girl around since Sharon was due in July with a little baby girl (Jane Elizabeth joined our extended family in July!!). During our conversation, Sharon described a really great toy that she had bought for Charlie at a resale shop. She told us that one of her friends had one and thought it was the best thing ever. Sharon found one for Charlie at a resale shop later on and bought it. Charlie still plays with his, and he is 2 years old now. She told us that if we ever saw one, to snatch it up because it is the BEST!!!! . . .


. . . OK, back to the present. I remembered what Sharon had told us and had been keeping my eyes open for something that looked like what she had described. Every time we went to one of these sales, whenever we drove past a garage sale, or whenever we went into a resale store, I kept looking. On Saturday, I finally saw it!!! I called Grandma Kathy & Auntie Mandy over to see it and told them about what Sharon had said. It became unanimous, this little "house" was coming home with us. Since I had Emily on my back (who was now straining to get to the house), and an armful of clothes & a couple of other toys, and Grandma Kathy had her arms full, it was Auntie Mandy's job to carry our new discovery. Emily would not let Auntie Mandy out of her sight! She wanted to play with that toy!!! She was sooooo excited!!


This little "house" is merely a freestanding doorway. There is one side that represents the exterior of a house. On this side there is a mailbox, doorbell, door knob, house numbers, a weather wheel, a window, a porch light, a flower box, and a rain gutter that doubles as a ball shoot. On the other side of the doorway is the interior of the house. On this side there is the inside of the mailbox, a lamp, door knob, light switch, radio, phone book, dog dish, and a clock. When the sound is turned "on" all of these things are interactive. When the door opens, it says "hello, goodbye, or who's there". When the doorbell rings, you hear the doorbell chime (there are 2 or 3 different chimes). When the radio is played, it gives traffic reports for the Rainbow Bridge and sings the alphabet song. When you change the house numbers, the voice says the new number. When you change the weather wheel from day to night or night to day, there are appropriate sound effects. If you turn on the lights, the voice says "lights on." When you turn the lights off, the voices says "lights off". When you open or close the door, it makes a creaking sound. Sometimes when you ring the doorbell, you will hear a dog bark. When you open the mailbox, it tells you that you have a letter. The flower in the flower pot spins like a pinwheel. The porch light turns on whenever the doorbell rings. The window opens and shuts, and of course makes the appropriate sound effects, plus the voice says either "up" or "down." This house is sooooo neat!! Emily has already spent HOURS playing with it.


After we were done at the Mothers' Clubs sale, we went to the Dupage County Convalescence Center to visit Grandma Kathy's friend, Donna. Donna's birthday is this week and since her family all lives far away, we brought a Birthday Party in a Bag to help her celebrate. She was very excited to see all of us, especially Emily of course. We had treats, chatted, and enjoyed the sunshine for a few hours and then it was time for Donna to go back upstairs and for us to be on our way. We had a few more stops to make before we went home to eat Daddy's dinner.


When we were finished with our errands, we went back to Grandma Kathy's house and began to clean all of the new toys that we bought for Emily. She sat on Daddy's lap and kept trying her best to get away from him and come over by us to play with all of the neat stuff she was seeing us with. Daddy did a great job of holding onto her, which is quite the challenge these days as she gets more and more able to control her body. When we were done cleaning, Daddy let her go, and boy did she go!! She had the best time exploring and trying all of her new toys. She was so excited, she didn't know what to play with first or which way to go. This was quite amusing to watch. She did tend to gravitate towards her beloved house, but would get distracted by some of the other new things, too.


It's safe to say that despite how Emily's weekend began (remember our last post about her illnesses), it sure had a quick upswing on Saturday. With this, we will leave you until next time. This weekend is looking quite busy, more for Mommy than for Emily, but she will be involved in most of this weekend's activities. We'll fill you all in later, well, hopefully sooner than later.

Visiting with Donna at her birthday party.

"Hey, what does this door do?"

"Wow, this is fun!"

"OK, now I'm out, I need to close the door so the mosquitoes don't get in."

"What a pretty flower!"

"Hey, does this window open?"

"OK, now I have to go back inside to see what is going on in there."

"Wow, I have mail!! I wonder who put this in there. I'm going to have to call Uncle Ron to see if he knows anything about this. Wait a minute, did someone just ring my doorbell?"

"Auntie Mandy, is that you out there ringing my doorbell?"

"Hey, I can see my flower from inside the window!"

"This house is so much fun!"

"Grandma, night time is over, I need to change this to daytime."

"The clock is not keeping time very well, I better fix it."

One of our other finds for the day was this xylophone.





" Is there anything that I'm forgetting to play with?"










"I'm soo excited, Grandma. Did you see all of this new stuff. I'm so happy, I could just clap!"

" Daddy, did you see all of my new toys?"

Here she is with her new drum (blue) and a large bug pull toy that lights up, plays music, and talks (the red toy filled with shapes).

"I am such a lucky girl. Look at all of this neat stuff!"