Curating Candles

We had some breakfast sandwiches this home, in the rainy, rainy weather. Then we had to run Emerson up to the church for kids choir rehearsal, for their upcoming Christmas play, which is next Sunday. So while she was at church, the three of us ran some errands. We stopped for gas, and got gas station coffee. I got a caramel macchiato, and it was actually really good.

Then we braved the rain and the craziness of TJ Maxx, to do some Christmas shopping.

And wouldn’t you know it, but little Miss Priss found not one, but two boxes of cookies, that she carried around with us. (I covertly put them both back on the shelf eventually, and luckily got away with it.)

While I was wandering a few other aisles, Jeff said, “I’ll meet you over in the candle aisle, cuz I know you’ll make it there eventually…” So by the time I got over there, he had a few set aside and immediately started holding them out to me to sniff. I absolutely loved the first one he shoved under my nose, and so that one went straight into the buggy. The second one was good too, but when I went to pick up one on my own, he was like, “No no, I’m curating candles for you.” But he did pick out three amazing options, and we may or may not have gotten all of them, plus one for a work Christmas party 🙂

We picked up Emerson from the church after noon, and then a big group of us (actually, it was 8 of the 11 adults from last night, plus 9 of our kids) went out to lunch at Gordo’s for Megan’s birthday lunch again. We relegated all the kids to their own tables (except for the baby-est one), and had a nice time at our grown-up table, and ate delicious food, and devoured alllll the Gordo’s sauce. IYKYK.

Addie Pie looks a little too sleepy and a little too comfy, all cuddled up with Aunt Meggie. She probably would have fallen asleep there, had the food taken just a few minutes longer…

But lunch was late, and sweet baby Addie was tired, that she fell asleep within just a few minutes once we got in the car afterwards.

We laid Addie down in her bed as soon as we got home, and she fell asleep again pretty quickly. We sent Jeff to go pick up our weekly Walmart grocery order, and I worked on making some homemade salsa, with all those tomatoes I got earlier this week. I found a nice Mexican mama sharing her recipe on TikTok, so I did it her way, by putting everything in the skillet first to get a little charred. And at this point, things were looking great!

And my sweet helper came and decided she did want to help me out after all. After getting everything pulsed together a few times, I did a quick taste test, and decided it needed some more salt. So I grabbed the giant jar of course salt, opened the wrong side, and accidentally dumped in probably like 3 tablespoons…. And it was incredibly salty after that.

So that’s why you can see us adding in the last two of the fresh tomatoes. And then I added more cilantro, seasonings, sugar, and some vinegar (after Googling how to counteract over-salting), but once we pulsed again by that point, it had been pulsed and blended too much and it was more like Tex-Mex tomato soup than salsa. So now I’ll be doing some “research” and thinking about how else I can use this concoction, since it’s not salsa, so it doesn’t all go to waste…

Emerson and I then made a quick run to Joann Fabrics, because we saw some videos online of their variety of ornaments. I wasn’t too impressed actually with the selection, and definitely not the price. But Emmie did find a unicorn she fell in love with, and luckily it was on sale (60% off a $17 ornament is still like $8 after taxes), so I made her day and bought it for her.

Addison was so tired after our big morning and her late nap, that she had to be woken up finally at 5:15pm.

And then we did some more Christmas decorating, by putting up these tiny white tress in both of the girls’ rooms.

In the middle of decorating the trees, I got some chicken going in the Instant Pot for dinner. Actually, I used a few chicken breasts, and a cup of the “salsa” I made earlier, with some chicken taco seasoning, and pressure cooked it on high. I shredded it up, and used it to make chicken fajita quesadillas for dinner. Emerson absolutely loved it, and kept telling me over and over how good the chicken quesadilla was.

The girls had a little bath after dinner, and then I dressed them in matching night gowns, and took their pictures in front of their finished Christmas trees. Emerson actually did hers completely on her own, and was very proud of herself.

After doing the first two days of our Advent calendar, Addie had a little bit more of the quesadilla she barely touched at dinner. We watched a few episodes of Bluey, and then everyone was so tired and ready for bed. It’s now 11pm, and I’ve been blogging for the last hour and a half or so (while also watching the two new special Christmas episodes of “Virgin River” on Netflix, writing two back-to-back posts for yesterday & today, and I’m exhausted and ready for bed too.