Hanging with the Hankens

I spent two days last week at Kelli’s.  I had Monday the 5th off and ended up taking Thursday off too.  She was scheduled to go back to work after maternity leave on Friday but we hadn’t accomplished all we had hoped to get done over her leave so we squeezed in two days and ran out butts off the whole time.

On Monday Grandma Renee took the kids and really got a lot done.  On Thursday we kept the kids.  We still did great as the boys are such good babies.  Here is Emmett.

…and here is Eli.

Can you believe how big they have gotten.  Here they are together…

Kelli said the two of them are doing great overnight.  They will sleep 10 hours now.  She is so blessed.

One of our goals was to clean out the spare bedroom and make it into the boys’ room.  The room was filled with hand-me-down clothes…bags and bags.  Kelli has great friends in her life and many have given her clothes that their kids outgrew.  Kelli made the mistake of not sorting them as they came in so the job was overwhelming.  We ended up coming up with a plan and now, the spare bedroom is the boys’ room and the closets are even clean.

Here is Georgie’s closet.  Being she has such a big closet, she has to house the holiday decor too.  So far, she doesn’t mind or even notice.

We got through Kelli’s room and her closet too.  We were both happy with our progress.

To date, we have almost been through the entire house deep cleaning in a way that every single thing has been touched.  Every single thing has a place..but we still need to do the bathroom, finish the laundry room and tackle her sewing room.

I plan to take a day off at the end of the month and see if I can help her do that too.  I’d like to get out to the garage and see what we can do there too but if we finish the first things I mentioned that should have her in good shape.

While we were cleaning Kelli came across this…The Language of the Flowers by Rosewood Manor.  It’s a cross-stitch project that both of us really love.

Kelli was a little sad as being the mom to three kids 2 and under leaves a gal with very little crafting, stitching, or sewing time.  I can’t tell you how many projects that Kelli had hoped to do were packed away as we were cleaning.

Then Kelli came up with an idea.  She said that the piece has 26 alphabet letters and 26 flowers.  A person could stitch a letter one week and stitch the corresponding flower the next week.  If a person did that over the course of a year, they would have the piece finished at the end of the year.  Kelli and I are thinking about doing it.

As I look at it closer, there are a few extra flowers but I still think that could work.  Hmm.  I’ll have to think about that some more.  It is really tempting though.  Another bonus about the project, it doesn’t have a border.  That is appealing!  Borders always give me a bit of a headache.

Kelli works the weekend package overnights so Jason, her husband, is on duty for the 12-hour shift while Kelli is gone.  Jason is a great guy and I”m sure he can handle it.  I do have to laugh Friday on her way to work, Jason called her and asked where the car seats were.  He had gotten a call only minutes into his first shift with the kids that the cattle were out at their other farm and Jason needed to get there and help get them in.  That meant getting the boys in car seats and Georgie in her car seat so he could get there and help put the cattle in.  The kids would have to sit in their seats while they waited for their Dad.  It’s the life of farm kids and they are all learning it early.

It’s many of the same lessons our kids learned.  I’m so happy that they are growing up on a farm…

I hope the work I did helping makes the transition back to work a little easier on their family.  It’s hard especially when we live in a modern world where moms can’t just stay home and be the mom full time.  It’s what Kelli so wishes she could do.