A proper snow a couple weeks ago. Excellent packing snow – a good time was had by all.

We’ve had a lot of snow this year.  I think I heard we’re on our 11th storm system of the season.  We’d already had more snow while we were in Bulgaria in early December than we get altogether some years.  It’s been kind of nuts.

Bea and her snowman. She ate his nose and eyes shortly after this was taken.

 Mostly, we’ve enjoyed it.  No one in our family really gets snow days, per se, but we’ve tried to get out and play at least one time in each snow fall.  We’ve sledded, built snowmen, drunk hot chocolate… on the whole I think we’ve made the most of it.

Juniper opted for the smaller scale project.

Daddy’s handiwork (and Romilly’s feet).

 Then came the “storm” that did us in.  There wasn’t much to it.  Freezing rain that washed some of the last snow away and left a coating of less than half an inch of ice on our tree branches.  The roads didn’t even need to be plowed.

 But at 7 o’clock on Wednesday morning last week our power went out, and we wouldn’t get it back until 6 o’clock on Saturday evening.

Poor snowmen never knew what hit them.

 It’s funny how things that become huge ordeals don’t always seem like them at first.  Our house only got down to the low/mid fifties that first day, and it didn’t really occur to us that the power would stay off for any length of time, so we put on sweatshirts and just went on with our day.  I think the kids actually forgot the power was out a few times.  Pippa came into the kitchen to find me washing dishes by hand and exclaimed with the most heartfelt sympathy, “Mom, how long do you think we’ll have to live like this?!”

It got a little weird when Trevor left us to go to work in the dark and we still had an hour and a half to kill before bedtime, but we read together by candle and flashlight at the dinner table and then cuddled up on the sofa and told stories.  It was nice, like Little House on the Prairie.  Everyone grabbed an extra blanket and went to bed.  Maybe by morning we’d have power back.

By morning, the house was 10 degrees colder, and sweatshirts and carrying on as usual did not seem like the order of the day.  My mom had a forced snow day from work (and had her power back on already), so we packed up our school books and headed for grandmom’s house.  We stayed until bedtime and got straight under our covers when we got home.

Delia and her best friend – oh how this girl adores dogs!

School time at grandmom’s house.

Each morning was a little chillier and more difficult than the last.  We were fine as long as we stayed under covers, but getting everyone dressed and out the door to hide somewhere warm for the day was a little rough, even for our seasoned Scottish campers.  We spent day 3 at grandmom’s again, but since day 4 was Saturday and Daddy was off from work, we decided to tough it out at home.  We had men working on the lines in our back yard early on in the day, so we knew the end was in sight.

Day 4 of camping in our house.

On Saturday at dinner time we had a surprise visit from my mom and grandmom.  After dinner, we were just about to head out to escape the cold until bedtime when the heater started whirring and the lights came on!  We had our little outing as planned, and came home to a balmy 50-degree house.  We were giddy at the thought of waking up all warm and toasty the next morning.  I’m still a little giddy each time the heat kicks on, to be honest.

It only reads down to 40, but it was COLD.

We all had our moments of grumbling for sure (Coraline was particularly distressed that the “mah-a-veve” was “bo-teen” [microwave broken] as I never quite mastered warming her morning milk on our gas stove), but I do believe that four days without electricity taught us all something about thankfulness, about how much we take for granted from the hand of our loving Father.  I’m sure we will again.  But for now, even as I sit here with Trevor having been stuck at work for 36 hours with yet another snowfall, I am thankful to be warm and have a laptop on which to blog.

Other news you missed during our big freeze:

Romilly turned 8 on our first day of power back on!  I honestly think that waking up warm would have been gift enough for her, but we were also excited to be able to keep our plans to have some dear friends over for blueberry muffins and ice cream in the afternoon to celebrate.

Happy birthday, lovely girl!  The deep inner workings of your heart and mind never cease to amaze me.  You are such a blessing to us!

Delia has continued to sleep through the night every single night since we moved her to the little girls’ room.  Without exception.  We decreased and then stopped her melatonin altogether.  She just sleeps now.  Still wakes up loud and crazy, but at least she does it in the morning now.  Praise the Lord!

Finally, if I could leave you with a prayer request: the baby gave us a week or so of being reassuringly head-down a couple weeks ago, but is now back to bobbing around between transverse and breech.  In six pregnancies worth of doctor and midwife appointments, I’m not sure the word c-section had ever even been mentioned, but it’s been mentioned now.  There is still time for the baby to turn on its own (especially for a sixth baby – it’s roomy in there!), and there are things to try if it doesn’t, but it’s beginning to look like this might not be the simple, uncomplicated birth and recovery that I’ve become accustomed to.  (See, didn’t I tell you I take things for granted?)

While I have no sentimental attachment to having my perfect birth story – I have had more than my fair share of those! – I’m just not sure how we’d swing the logistics of a c-section with its longer hospital stay and recovery restrictions with life at home being a little busier than usual anyway right now.  God knows our desires and our needs, and we are praying that this little one will figure out what it needs to do soon and that we will have peace in the meantime, whatever happens.