Moving On

Micah had taken an interest in cooking a few months ago when we visited a local library. They had a kitchen set that was loaded with all the tools and food a child needed in order to make a fabulous meal or twenty. He "cook"ed (as he calls it) for at least 45 minutes at the kitchen set and anything that holds our little man's attention for 45 minutes is worth looking into to purchase for our home. Auntie Kristina and Uncle Nicky Nick bought M a Play-Doh cooking set for Christmas and he was fascinated with it, so I reintroduced it to him and again it held his interest for long periods of time. We visited other libraries and after playing with the trains and Legos, he'd go to the kitchen for the rest of the time. Probably helps that I'm in the kitchen a lot since I make 90% of our meals from scratch and he's always there "helping" me. All that to say that I decided that we were in the market for a kitchen set, so I went about pricing them and seeing which one I liked and hoping for a coupon or a sale to pop up somewhere along the time. But, even better, Dad popped up with, "Hey, I can make him one of those."

I knew he could because he has developed into a wonderful craftsman in the short time he has had his workshop, but it would take a lot of time and effort and Dad is a busy guy. But we went over a design I really liked and worked out some dimensions and were all ready to go to the store to get materials when he disappeared into his workshop and declared that we didn't need to go anywhere because he had most everything he needed. I told him to tell me every penny he spent because these things go for at least $100, so he was already saving me money and besides I didn't want him paying for materials since he was already going to be putting lots of time into it.

He wouldn't let me see it until it was almost completed because he wanted it to be a surprise. It looked amazing in the final stages, but when he and Mom showed up one day to drop it off, he had really outdone himself. And of course he deemed it a birthday gift for M so I couldn't give him anything for it, but even more special than that, our kids will have a very cool kitchen set handmade for them by their Grandpa for (hopefully) generations. Too cool. Here's the tour...GREAT job, Father, you are one in a billion!