Dream House revisited

Didn't you just love the Fisher Price house?  The blue "siding", faux brick kitchen floor and the DING! door bell were all features of my first dream house.  This is how the real estate ad would read:

"2 story colonial.  2 bedroom, no bath.  No staircase, must hop to second floor.  New yellow roof with dormer open-air windows.  2 fireplaces (includes brick oven in kitchen), single car garage with cobblestone driveway and door to back yard.  Kitchen has wooden cabinets and double oven.   Includes master bedroom dutch colonial "furniture" and nursery "bookcase".  Handle on top for easy relocation."

My home owning  dreams were realized when I owned this house.  I played and played, moving around furniture, squeezing children into the one extra bedroom, driving the one car into the garage.  I expanded my properties to include the school, the town, the camper and longed for the elusive Sesame Street playset.

I treated myself to the Hallmark ornament version of the Play Family House last week.  I love that Hallmark gives a nod to vintage Fisher Price every year.  While it was sitting on my kitchen counter, I noticed it matched my just completed kitchen curtains.  Brainstorm!  A bit of eBay bidding and a week later, I placed my childhood dream house in my grown up dream house.  Its been played with, inhabited by Star Wars figures, surrounded by Brio train track and admired by neighbors who remembered their own first dream house.  Its a sweet reminder of how I began, how far I have come and how most dreams are rooted in simplicity.