Week by Week: 1/52 {Epiphany, Edith's Baptism, Christmastide}

In resolving to continue my weekly photography project this year, I also decided to look back on what made it difficult last year and change things up a bit. Often I managed to get portraits of the older kids during nap time, but then never got a good picture of Peter until the week had already passed. Or I'd get the girls but not John Paul. Or Edith would always be sleeping... So this year I think I'll just take what photos I can, but focus more on life in general around here, rather than trying to get an individual picture of each child. We'll see if I stick with it!

The twins have taken to sitting at the piano together to sing Christmas songs. It's adorable and also infuriating, because there are MANY fights over who is allowed to sing what, and what the correct words are, correct tune, correct rhythm, correct key (John Paul's corrections don't help...). Sometimes they want me to sing along. Sometimes they DO NOT. Sometimes they add instruments and have a parade. I need to get a few more illustrated general songbooks, because it's so sweet and such an easy way to work music into our daily routine!

Edith got baptized! Having a baby at the beginning of Advent is so different from two weeks before - every single free moment is suddenly full and there's no time to schedule a baptism and then all of a sudden it's Christmas and Father says he can't believe the baby's still a heathen! So we made the arrangements speedily after that, and the poor thing had to wait until she was almost 6 weeks before the baptism... The kids were all VERY relieved, because they kept asking and asking when she would be baptized!

I feel like Christmastide means the house is just constantly going to be fairly cluttered because of new gifts that haven't found permanent places and the fact that chores still need to get done, despite the merriment! Everyone else is taking their trees down, but Andrew is set on keeping ours up until Candlemas (we've done it before, and are always SO READY for it to come down by then!). The tree is definitely tilting to one side more than it originally was, but it's not dropping needles to terribly, so maybe it'll make it? We'll see.

We've been experiencing very cold weather (for Virginia), such that we have to keep the kitchen faucet running a trickle lest the pipes freeze. That was the absolute worst last year, when the kitchen pipes were frozen for a full week and I had to wash dishes in the bathtub! We were hoping to get insulation installed outdoors before the winter came, but every contractor we've seen makes promises to give us a quote and then never gets back to us. It's a source of much frustration, that's for sure.

I got the girls all aprons for Epiphany, and now they think that if they're wearing an apron, that gives them permission to "help" in the kitchen. Truthfully, they really can be quite helpful if I'm willing to give them the space. But I like to be alone in the kitchen. It's a preference I need to let go of, because I *can't* get dinner on the table in a timely manner if I'm doing it alone every night! Thankfully we've had very sweet friends bringing meals a few times a week so that there are days when I don't have to worry about dinner - it really, really is the most wonderful thing. I'm so grateful for their help, and love the ministry of meals so very much, especially in these chaotic early years of motherhood when you want to find a way to serve, but just can't volunteer your time or energies in many ways because there are so many duties at home!