Cora and Violet's new house

Despite how it must look on the blog, Stace wasn't all-work-and-no-play during our Kitchen Week.

We went out for several meals, watched two DVDs (Megamind with Cora and The Social Network last night) and enjoyed our first barbecue of the year.

Stace also turned the pantry cardboard box into this wonderful playhouse for his girls!

You can see by Cora's smile how happy she was to see it. It has kept the girls busy and happy for four days now!

The girls have played in the house individually, and together. Violet especially loves playing peekaboo with the door and all the windows.

Decorating the house became a high priority for Cora.

She first put up construction-paper curtains and purple icicles. She taped up pictures of Nemo and some flower petals.

Then, she and Ave and Johnny went to town with markers and crayons.

Cora brings inside her toys, a battery powered lantern and her blanket and pillow.

Sunday night, we got the girls dressed for bed and they had bezzert inside the house. What fun!

I absolutely love the last few photos, from their snack time together. It's these moments of seeing our girls loving each other, loving being together, that make the hard work of parenthood worthwhile.