Ellie's New House: A Guided Tour

About a month before we moved, I printed out a picture of the house we were going to rent and told Ellie this was her new house. She asked every day if we could go see "Ellie's new house." She still calls it that, even though we've been here for almost four weeks now. I don't know what we will call the next place we move into.

We are really enjoying our house, living in walking distance to the park, the library, the farmers' market, and church. We hardly drive anywhere. The house itself has been great too. A kitchen big enough to house all of Brady's culinary projects, and no stairs to worry about for Charlie.

Ellie has discovered some of the finer features of the house:


This is her "Harry Potter closet." It is the bottom linen cupboard in one of the bathrooms where I decided to keep some big quilts and extra pillows. Ellie thought it was great that I put a little bed in there for her. (It's also a good place to practice her baby balancing skills.) Someday she's going to read Harry Potter and not get why it was so mean that he was forced to sleep in a little cupboard under the stairs.


The counter tops are set just right to make a nice blanket fort. And if you dump out the toy box first, you can move some furniture in.


The oven door doesn't have a window, which Brady doesn't love, but Ellie thinks it makes for a great full-length mirror. She is always running up to it and making faces or dancing. Here she is being either a princess or "all married" and riding on her doggie, "Bullseye."


Ellie's performance continues with her "guys" on the stage in the living room.


Ellie always loved playing on the bunkbeds at her cousins' house and was delighted to find we had some in our own dining room.


She really wanted Charlie to get in the bunkbed with her. Careful what you wish for kiddo, you just may get it someday.


Probably her favorite place in the house, though, is "the club." This cupboard has three doors to it, and I knew it would be too difficult to monitor, too much temptation. So we just left it empty. Ellie calls it "the club," and loves to play in there, pretend to sleep in there, finish her lunch in there, you name it.




She doesn't mind that it's dark when all the doors are closed. It reminds me of Silas Marner when Eppie plays in the coal hole where she had been sent for punishment. Guess I can't use "the club" as a timeout corner.

I'd say Ellie likes her new house pretty well. She's been having a rough time settling into this move. You'll notice that she's in pajamas in most of these pictures. It's not that I took them all the same day, or all right before bedtime. She just really wants to be in her pajamas all the time. It's kind of her comfort/control thing right now. We really turned her world upside down uprooting her and bring her here. She misses having her cousins and aunts and uncles around all the time, and especially her grandparents. (Yesterday she was trying to talk me into turning on a show for her, and when I told her no, she said maybe Charlie could do it, or Grandma could. I reminded her Grandma wasn't here and then she wailed, "Grandpa isn't home too!")

Thanks to Skype and plenty of adventures here, though, I think she is starting settle and enjoy it here too.