Project: Dollhouse Cubbies for Christmas!

Perhaps the most fun that Kaylee and I have ever had giving a gift was two years ago when we bought Hearts for Hearts dolls for Christmas.  We purchased the dolls, but we also made beds and bought furniture at a miniatures market.  It was a month-long project that we both enjoyed and they have been a regular part of the girls' playtime ever since.  Kaylee has also greatly expanded their wardrobe with various dresses, outfits, and jammies that she sews in her spare time.

The problem is that they have just been set up on the floor in the corner for the past two years.  Not only does it make them a bit hard to play with, it's a poor use of space.  When we decided to stay here a year ago, Kaylee started thinking that a cubby-style "house" might be the best way to get them off the floor, give the girls some more storage, and allow them to personalize their space.

Finally, last month I made it happen.  It was a simple enough project, just some plywood and paint.  I built the cabinets the week before Christmas and every time the girls asked me what they were, I said, "Oh, just some cabinets that Mommy asked me to make."

Kaylee did all the painting. She even mixed her own custom colors for the second floor of each.

Our big plan was to set them up the living room for Christmas morning, but we didn't realize that the girls already had plans.  They had picked out jammies for Christmas Eve and outfits for the following morning and were planning to make a night of it.  I convinced them that the dollies would enjoy camping next to the Christmas tree, so they set them up and then headed to bed themselves.

After giving them an hour or two to make sure they were sleeping and not going to show up with one of the 100 excuses they have, Mr. and Mrs. Clause got to work and this is what greeted Anne, Addi, and Lydia when they came downstairs on Christmas morning:

Kaylee had also made a new dress and scarf for each one and we found umbrellas just the right size in the market!

And finally, this is how their doll corner of the play room looks now:

Junior Tinkers: Helping Dad

I lament the day when my daughters see "helping dad" as work, rather than a privilege.

I know the day will most likely come, so I need to make the most of their joy now.  It's not always easy: to put it plainly, they are small, slow people that are, more often than not, in the way.  It takes a lot of patience to allow them to be a part of my projects, and I often struggle to have a good attitude.  But if I want them to be involved in my life and vice versa, I must grow in it!

It's a lot easier if I intentionally seek out jobs that they can help with.

This past week, God gave me a perfect opportunity.  It's rainy season here now, which makes quite a mess of the dirt and rock roads that surround us.  After a couple years of riding with taxi drivers who dance around puddles for fear of getting their cars dirty, I have been eager to go splashing again!

Of course, we can't leave it like that all the time.  So I bought the girls some new fleecy orange rags and broke out the soap and water:

They loved spraying it with the hose and rubbing it down, although Lydia spent more time playing in the bucket and trying to wash Biscuit than actually working on the car.  They were having so much fun, they didn't even blink when I offered them 3Bs each (about 50 cents) for the help.

Junior Tinkers: Pink Paint!

Our organization has been going through some changes here that involved sorting through a lot of old tools and supplies to downsize.  In the process, I came across about a quart of pink paint!

The girls' school table is a rough beast that I bought down in the Cancha and then whacked the legs off of, over a year ago.  Over the past year it has cracked and twisted and gotten colored on.  We decided it was the perfect place to put pink paint!

While Kaylee was at the church's ladies' retreat, I had 3 days by myself with the girls.  I thought a special father-daughter activity would be a good highlight to the weekend, so while the girls napped, I pulled out my angle grinder (from the same place as the paint!) and put its sanding disc to work on the top.  It's too fast for a really good finish, but it got the job done.

Then, when the girls were up from their rest, it was time to get the paint out!

They wore some of my work shirts

I had to clip their shirts at the shoulders, so they would stay on!

On Sunday, the four of us were getting ready to go to church without Kaylee, but while I had all three girls in the shower, the power went out.  Remember, our shower is an instant-hot electric "widow maker" (I wrote about that here), so it went cold fast!  I had to rinse them off with cold, which didn't go well.  Then, while they dried and got warm in front of the propane heater, I hunted for, found, and fixed the short circuit that caused the problem.

By that time, it was too late to make it to church, so we did church at home, with the new table!  Because of the situation we're in with our landlord and moving, we talked about and colored the story of Paul and Silas and their response to hard times in the Philippian jail, and the blessing that came from it.