many hands make light work?

The first weekend of October, Bryan was home for a visit from Arizona. It was to be his last visit, although we didn't know it at the time.

The house, car and family were all in need of desperate attention. The budget dictated that he spend some time fixing Vanilla Bean's brakes. Our savings were dwindling after a week requiring repairs to both Pickle and Vanilla Bean totaling a couple grand.

Thankfully, Bryan is great at working with little helpers and Saturday morning found half our crew watching and "helping" Daddy fix the car.

Madelyn, 11, holding Evelyn, 8 months.

Mason, 5, driving. Nolan, 2 1/2 "working".

Nolan repeatedly tried to push Daddy out of the way, saying "Me do it. My turn."

He is actually quite dexterous for a toddler, operating the torque wrench was no problem. Well, except for exerting enough torque!

In the end, Vanilla Bean was repaired for a budget-friendly $9.97, with the added bonus of building relationships with Daddy-starved kiddos.

Back in the day, Bryan and I watched The Red Green Show, where a common refrain was "If she can't find ya handsome, she should at least find ya handy!" I am exceedingly blessed to have a man who is both. Besides fixing Vanilla Bean, he replaced an electrical outlet that was shorting out and magically fixed the bath tub drain lever in the front bathroom.

Before Arizona, I would have taken all these for granted. The experience of being handy-husbandless for 3 months gave me new eyes to see and appreciate all those little things that I can't take care of, things other people have to hire a professional to fix.

I am not sure that the work was accomplished

more efficiently with these many hands,

but it was accomplished more joyfully.