what's up weekly. (Ophelia is the star of the show.)

Hello, hello!  I'm going to try to bust out this post so I can go take my baby back from Todd and snuggle her.  I can't type with one hand, but she loves to be cuddled so I can't often put her down - and I honestly don't mind.  I'd rather cuddle her than put her down to type, so we all win.  Except the blog.  And I want to remember these days, so I'll sacrifice a little while of not getting to be the one to hold her, just to document them, but not for long, because Ophelia is lightyears cuter than my computer screen.

So the news of the week is just Baby Ophelia.  We are all totally in love.

Callista especially just adores her.

Unfortunately, she spent all kinds of time kissing her all over her face, and then she woke up on Friday with a fever and the barfs.  

Luckily, the rest of us seem to have been skipped over, though all the kids have complained of off-and-on nausea/gurglybelly since then, so maybe it's lingered but hasn't really attacked anyone.  On Monday night, Todd got hit with a terrible headache (he gets really severe headaches; have I ever mentioned that?), and we weren't sure if he was coming down with it - he had aches and chills and couldn't get off the floor, but he gets that way sometimes if the headache is bad enough, so it was hard to tell.  But he slept it off and woke up the next morning feeling recovered, so it must not have been a bug; just a terrible, terrible headache.  Poor guy.

The next day, everyone seemed to be feeling fine so we had our traditional birthday cupcakes in celebration of Ophelia's birth.

On Tuesday, we got everyone in for a chiropractor appointment, including Ophelia.  It was her first time leaving the house and may I just say she looked ADORABLE?!  

On Wednesday, we started some food prep for Christmas.  Because I was hit with Covid so close to my due date, there was a lot of holiday prep (and postpartum prep) that I had been planning on that just didn't happen.  One of those things was holiday meal prep, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to do much in the way of keeping our traditions up this year.  Oh, me of little faith.  I always forget I have a million kids!  A million kids who love stuff like this!

So I had Atticus put the KitchenAid on the dining room table for me so I could make cinnamon rolls sitting down.  Then I scalded the milk, but then set the kids to the rest of it.  Lolo melted butter.

Penelope added dry ingredients.

The KitchenAid kneaded the dough.  And the dough was done.  Then after rising, the boys rolled out the dough and spread it with butter, and the girls sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.  Then the girls helped me make the caramel and cut the rolls, and bingo bango.  Team effort.

Thursday was a lot more team effort-ing.  Todd and the kids went up to the Amish, since they won't be able to go tomorrow, and while they were gone, Ophelia slept long enough to let me wrap our final few presents and move some laundry.  (Which is apparently the extent of my physical capacity right now.  Fine.  It's fine.  I only have the same muscle density as my newborn baby, but it's fine.)  When the kids got home, I set them to deep cleaning the basement - Todd moved the couch and vacuumed, the kids picked up and sorted all their things in preparation of bringing more stuff into the house.  Laurelai vacuumed the girls' room.  They got everything tidied up and beautiful for me.

Then I set the kids to food prep.  I sat on the couch, nursing the baby with my stack of recipes in hand so I knew what needed to be done.  "You go peel potatoes, you go grate cheese, you go dice the onions, you go fry the bacon, you go to the basement to get the cream cheese."  Etc. etc. etc.  The kids basically prepped all the food for both today and tomorrow.  I peeled or sliced or diced nary a veggie.  I helped mix and assemble into a casserole some potatoes that had been cooked and mashed by little hands.  I sauteed a few peppers and onions for our breakfast bread.  But that was all, apart from supervising.

And that brings us to today.  Merry Christmas Eve!  As your early Christmas present, I "present" you with a few more photos from the week in which my kids are adorable and everyone clearly loves each other.

LOOK SHE IS SMILING FOR THE CAMERA OH MY GOODNESS.

And if those photos weren't enough of a Christmas gift (although, how could they not be?), as a belated present, I promise I am still planning on getting her birth story posted next week.  I have written it all out, I just need to add photos.  But again, I don't often find myself with two free hands.  Keep checking back in after Christmas!

Merry Christmas, friends!  I am off to snuggle my baby.