My Charlie Is A Homebuilder.........AND it's His Birthday!

Sunday, March 21, 2010



Today is my Charlie's Birthday.......and on that note, it occurred to me the other day while looking through some old pictures, that you guys really don't know just how talented my Charlie is; he can do literally anything.  SO........since he's kinda modest and easy going and won't tell you himself, I will.

This is also a good time to remind most of you that my Charlie struggles daily with Multiple Sclerosis. This disease is a terrible, no good, very bad disease that affects many aspects of his life, yet he refuses to sit down and stop living.  He just keeps that very warped sense of humor of his and looks at each day as a new start.

Ever since Charlie and I have been grandparents, we have enjoyed "making" our granddaughters' stuff for Christmas.   Our granddaughters are very very blessed to have three sets of grandparents who love making sure they "want" for nothing....... which sometimes makes it difficult when it comes to gift buying.  So Charlie and I decided pretty early on to limit the gifts to 3 each at Christmas; afterall, if its good enough for Baby Jesus, its good enough for our granddaughters (thanks to my good friend, Suzanne, for sharing this family tradition of hers!  I love it!).  And one of these three gifts would be something we made ourselves.

So, several years ago, we decided to make them a "playhouse within the house".  Our son and his family had just moved into a new home in Allen and had a large playroom upstairs that would be perfect for this "playhouse within the house".  After getting the dimensions of the room from our son, Charlie and I sat down at our kitchen table and designed out every little girl's dream playhouse....actually, 1/2 of a playhouse.  We took the designed playhouse and literally cut it in half on paper.  Chuck used piano hinges so it could be transported easily (well.....not exactly "easily" but successfully!) from our garage to their house in Allen 100 miles away.  He designed and cut each piece of wood, each shutter, each window.....he was amazing!  And the playhouse was fabulous!  We decorated the interior with wallpaper, fabric and a tiny chandelier, along with a couple MDF chalkboard silhouettes of the youngest granddaughter and their dog Laguna.

As you can see, it fits the girls perfectly!  They now have a home for their thousands of baby dolls; a kitchen to bake their imaginary cakes in; a place to hide during "Hide and Seek"; and a place they can call their own.

Grandpa and Lele (that's us!!)  just hope they enjoy playing in it as much as we did making it.

This is from Charlie's oldest granddaughter, Bella, who is 7 years old who came to visit her grandpa this weekend and wish him a very very 

Happy Birthday

This is from Charlie's youngest granddaughter, Brie, who is 5 years old who also wishes Grandpa Charlie a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!