Brothers & Oranges

Everyone was very sleepy this morning, after a long day and a late night. So we were all slow and sleepy this morning, especially with the crazy stormy, rainy weather outside. I was asked to fill in as the GC Kids Jr. check-in lead this morning, with Meg out of town, and her back-up lead in charge, so I went to church by myself early, and Jeff got all four kids up and moving and dressed for church. We only had child-care for preschool and under, so Emmie went into big church with her brothers, and you can see she was clearly comfy cozy with them!

We ordered the big giant family meal box pack thingy from Zaxby’s for lunch, with a $5 off coupon in my app. We added some extra sauces, and some extra toast, plus an order of fried pickles, and every single bite of this food was eaten… Anyways, the girls are totally obsessed with their brothers, and always “call” sitting by them at meals and such and want to hug them and play with them. It’s very super sweet.

Addie and Gabe were playing around, with Addie being a little tiger kitty cat…

And Emmie and Ryan were playing around, but who knows what Emmie was actually doing…

Then Addie asked Daddy to watch “Frozen” on his phone, grabbed another pieces of toast, and got cuddled up with Gabe for a little bit of bread and a movie.

Sister pic! (Poor little Addie tripped and fell after church and scraped both knees. Luckily, Emmie had packed her Dollar Tree first aid kit from her stocking in the car yesterday for the trip to Wild Adventures, and so we still had that for some emergency bandaids and ointment.)

After lunch, we headed back home for some rest. Jeff and Addie laid down for a nap, and I wrote the blog post for yesterday’s trip to Wild Adventures. The boys went shopping with Nana for a little while, to do some returns and exchanges and some Christmas shopping. I laid down on the couch and turned on a little Hallmark Christmas movie with Emerson, and kinda slept a little bit on & off.

Addie didn’t nap long, and the girls were a little noisy, so I really didn’t get much rest. So I just ran out to get the weekly Walmart grocery order, which was crazy big/huge/expensive today, because on top of all the food for six people to eat mostly all of our meals at home for a week, we also needed toilet paper and diapers. Sheesh.

After getting all the groceries put away, and the bags all bagged up to take to daycare (they re-use them for diapers and dirty clothes, so we always donate them there), I got a cheesy chicken & rice casserole into the oven to bake for dinner. Jeff got the dining table cleaned up and re-set to my specifications, and then the girls helped me pick oranges to help bring the rest of my vision to life for the table.

To go with the casserole, I made two cans of croissants, and two cans of lima beans, and then everything was ready. This is my MIL’s recipe, from one of her old church friends from sometime in the 80’s or something, and I love making it, especially when the boys are here, because it’s quick and easy and delicious and filling, and feeds a big crowd.

With the table cloth back on the table, and the little orange slices on the print, the wooden platter full of our oranges looks so cute in the middle of the table! I think we’ll probably leave the Christmas decor up for the rest of the week, and make it our goal to take everything down and get it put away this coming weekend. But for now, we’ll continue enjoying the Christmas decor, and a few more Christmas movies.

I washed up a sink full of dirty dishes after dinner (I am not actually sure where they even came from, since I had the sink completely empty a couple of days ago, and I don’t feel like we’ve eaten at home much the past couple of days…?), and put away the last tiny bit of the casserole that was leftover. Gabe and I both had two helpings, and Emerson actually had three helpings (and Addison wanted to eat one of the oranges from my “centerpiece” which she did), so there was just enough left for one lunch container for work this week.