Christopher's Baptism

(Uncle Jim, Jen and Christopher, me, Julie and Marc)

Sunday we had Christopher's baptism. Lucky for us the house was still in decent condition from Easter last weekend so it wasn't the wholesale tear the house apart and clean kinda day. Jen had to work again on Saturday so I was able to get some stuff done before she headed off for the rest of the day. The boys let me get some stuff done, but once Christopher is awake he wants attention. I was able to throw together this years supply of coney sauce for the hot dogs. One batch freezes well and last at least a year. Jen got home around 11:00 and we were up past 12 working on last minute stuff. Sunday the crew was up early. You would think that would give us tons of time to get out the door, but no we were lucky to make to to church before the mass started. I was hoping to get there early so we could sit with the other relatives. After the service we all mulled around waiting for the priest to get his stuff together. Jen took Christopher to the bathroom to change into his baptismal cloth, dress, whatever. This dress has been in our family and activley used for almost 100 years and it still looks great. (I believe it is heading to Arizona or California next)Before we left for church, there were a couple of real messy sounding rumbles from Christopher's diaper and sure enough he had blown through that outfit. So Jen is in the bathroom changing christopher and trying to get him dressed. There is only one other baby being baptised on Sunday so that baby was trying to be changed in the hallway of the bathroom as well. So the priest comes out to start the baptism and no babies. Finally Jen comes out of the bathroom, and the other baby gets changed into his outfit for the ceremony to begin. The other baby did not want to be there as proven by the crying the entire time. We get started with the ceremony, but the only thing I can see and hear is the movement and sound of our other two children running all over church and yelling. I barely paid attention to the ceremony at all, trying to make sure that the other two didn't light the place on fire by running into candles.

Side Note: talking about burning the church down. My brother told me a story of Easter serviced last weekend. At one point the priest was blessing the alter with incense, which is basicly a large orb with hot ash being swung by a chain. During the the blessing the orb goes flying off the chain and lands behind the alter starting the carpet on fire. I think my brother said he used the wine to put it out. You can see the burn marks in the carpet behind the alter... I should have gotten a picture of it.

Anyway. Here is the video of Christopher being baptised. Yeah I know it's sideways, but I just pulled the camera out of my pocket and hit play. It happened so fast.

So we get down with the ceremony and mull around for a little bit to take pictures and whatnot. Then we all caravan back to our house for lunch. We decided to try and keep it simple by just cranking up the hot dog steamer (which I started before mass) and some sides. We probably should have estimated the number of people better because before we knew it we had blown through 40 hot dogs, all the layer dip, all the chips, all the fruit, and all of the cake. I don't think anyone didn't get food, but it was a little closer than I like to try and be. More visiting with relatives that we had just seen last weekend. I also hooked the Wii up again and let the boys play for a while. I was trying to get the adults to play a little bit too. Around 3 or 4 everyone left, and Jen and I did a quick clean up, which was very quick since there wasn't any food left anyway. I hit the chair and it was nap time. Next is William's birthday party tomorrow, but that isn't going to be that big of a deal this year, after that nothing on the horizon for a while. Whew....