The House that Brooke Built

Thanks to Brad's inspiration from his new tool chest box, Brooke has a new house! It has been quite a family project and has provided lots of fun play lately. Daddy provided the vision and materials, Mommy was the architect (placing doors, windows and the roofline) and then Daddy jumped in again as our General Contractor and Interior Designer. He cut the windows and doors and taped the roof up. Of course, Brooke was the ever-ready Assistant, holding tape, pulling out cardboard shapes and banging on it with her toy hammer! She does a good job keeping it maintained, too, because she still works on it with her hammer and duct tape.

I came home the next day to find that Brad and Brooke had equipped it drawings of a kitchen (sink, fridge, microwave, counters -- the works), a bookshelf complete with all of Brooke's favorite titles, a bed (with a cat lying on it), doorknobs, a welcome mat and a street sign! At Brooke's prompting, I added pictures and labels of our Rocky, Bagheera, and Romeo, Brooke's stuffed dog "Cookie" (a birthday present from Aunt Amy), flowers, our names, pictures of the new baby, and... tape. Yes, she wanted me to draw a picture of tape! (What house is complete without tape?)



And, everyone knows that any house of ours will require lots and lots of paint! Brooke has spent many blissful painting sessions decked out in a smock with her paintbrush and palette in hand. She really likes it when I tie a bandanna around her head to keep the paint out of her hair. We have wonderful painting sessions in the kitchen and then fun baths afterwards. She has painted this house all over! She used up all of her paints and we had to go buy three big new bottles. All of the drawings were painted first, so they're hard to see. And yes, she had aptly illustrated that kids' paints mixed together make lots of dark purple! (The trick is to give only two colors at a time and have multiple layers if you want to see other colors!)




She takes after us: a natural DIY-er, ever-evolving results!