Baked Ziti & Brothers

Emmie and I got up around 6:30 this morning, cuddled for a while watching “The Lorax,” and then decided we were hungry and needed breakfast. She always loves to help, and she’s so very sweet about it.

My Mama got me this tiny waffle make I had on my Christmas wish-list, and we broke it in this morning, by making little scrambled egg waffle-patties, that we put on bread for egg sammies! It was soooo easy, and worked really well, and tasted delicious. (If you have one of these, scramble one egg in a little bowl, add a splash water, pour in, and let cook for a 1-2 minutes, until the lid starts rising and egg looks done. That’s it!) I made an iced coffee for myself, and of course Tiny had to have a few sips as well.

After our breakfast together, we both got dressed for church, bundled up in our warmest clothes (since it was a ridiculous 28 degrees this morning!), and headed off to church. We were listening to Christmas songs on the way to church, and when a nice, slow Hillsong version of “Silent Night” came on, she said, “I like Silent Night because it’s so sweet and calm.”

We grabbed lunch on the way home after church, and then read one book before nap time. I laid down on the couch to watch Netflix and possibly nap myself, but she only slept for just over an hour, so I didn’t have too much time to settle down before she was already waking up and calling out to me, asking if it was time to wake up yet. I tried to convince her to sleep a little longer, but that was a no-go.

We spent some time playing and drawing and busting out more Christmas presents, and then we played school together. I was “Miss Lolly,” and she chose to be “Addison.” She packed her backpack and put on her sweater and asked what we were going to do in class today. It was so funny, and so cute.

We went to Publix to pick up one thing that was out of stock in my Walmart grocery pick-up order, and as always, she wanted to hop up here. She said, “I wanna scale myself!” She now weighs a whopping 28 pounds, so she’s gained another pound or two!

After getting things going for dinner (sautéing beef, sausage & onions then adding tomatoes & sauce & spices to let simmer for a while, & boiling ziti noodles), Emmie and I went out to play around in the front yard and carport for a while again today.

We went back in after some play time, and I finished up making the baked ziti for dinner. This was my first time making this, and although it wasn’t technically difficult to make, there were so many pots & pans involved! Six different things – dutch oven for sauce, pasta pot, strainer for grease, bowl to make cheese mixture, bowl to cool half of the sauce before mixing, and casserole dish for baking. Lord have mercy. But hey, it turned out delicious, and was a hit with the picky teen step-sons, and the very hungry hubby. Emmie didn’t love it, but that was her loss 😉 She had a PB&J instead, so that’s fine…

Jeff and the boys got home right as I was putting the casserole together, so it was perfectly timed for dinner. Jeff & the boys had large servings (mine was much smaller, with my smaller pregnancy appetite), and two of them  had large servings for seconds, and we still ate less than half of that giant dish! This meal feeds a crowd, y’all. (I used The Pioneer Woman’s recipe, by the way, which you can find here on her website.)

There was way more sauce than I wanted to put in the dish (it was already packed to the gills), so I saved a Mason jar full of it, and that by itself is already the perfect sauce for some plain spaghetti noodles, so I’m glad I saved that. I also made myself a fairly large to-go container to take to work with me tomorrow, and you can see how much is still left.

While Gabe & Ryan got some of their stuff unpacked and settled in for the week, I got Tater Tot in the bath tub to get her all cleaned up. She then chose her own jammies, and picked the two books she wanted each of her brothers to read at bedtime.

She did good with bedtime tonight, and settled in to sleep fairly easily. While I did her lullabies and Jesus Loves Me, I assigned the trash, recycling & dishes to be taken care of by the the guys, so that was nice to have it taken care of by the time I walked out of her bedroom. I’m now completely exhausted, and I’m hoping they wanna just watch a movie or something, so I can relax a little bit now before bedtime!