Date Night

Up at 6:30, eating snacks and watching her new obsession, Barney. We introduced her to it last night, and she instantly loved it. She’s very into dinosaurs, and with all the singing, what’s not to like?! Also, the 90’s nostalgia hit me so hard!

She had snacks and gummies for “first breakfast”, and then still ate a Mickey waffle and half of mommy’s toaster strudel for her *second breakfast.* We’re pretty sure she’s a hobbit.

Then we got busy on chores! Her room, the living room, and the kitchen were all just a messy mess, so we had a lot to do.

Emmie’s room before…

We put this baby bear to work, and bribed her with Cheetos if she would do chores, and it worked!

The after still includes a large pile of only sorta-organized stuff, but that’s fine by me. All the clean & dirty clothes are in their proper places, and things are cleaner than before!

Living room before… Also notice, the cute “welcome” sign my MIL gave me for my birthday, that Emmie felt the need to carry around the house for a bit this morning.

Emerson took this photo 😆

After! Much better!

After doing all the chores and getting dressed, we packed up a bag for Emerson, and headed over to Grammy’s house! Emmie wanted to carry her backpack and her Minnie Mouse, and she somehow looked like she was 10 years old, heading to her friends house for a sleepover, instead of two years old, heading to Grammy’s house for a sleepover.

Emerson was super excited to see all her family, including all the babies.

And two of the three babes are learning to walk now, and wanted to show off for us! First below is Riley, then second is Kensley.

And this is Ellie. And Ellie Grace started crawling for the first time today!

Emerson helping Aunt Meggie out ice in the glasses for lunch.

This was supposed to be one of those one-pan sheet pan meals, but when you’re making enough for seven adults, it ends of taking three sheet pans!

Such a colorful, yummy meal!

Emerson was playing in the babies’ pool float, wishing for the warmer days of summer.

And then her and Aunt Meggie talked to Alexa for a while again.

We tried to get her to go down for a nap after all the activities, and she chose Aunt Meggie to put her down. They read a book, and Meggie did the lullabies. She let her lay her down, and stayed back there for 5 or 10 minutes, and then was done with that…

I also got myself a haircut from Megan today, which was sorely needed. (For a reminder, Meg used to be an assistant for a hair stylist, and so she has cut my hair for years.)

We had cake & ice cream, and I opened presents, and then Grandmommie laid down in the bed with Emmie, and she finally fell asleep for a late afternoon nap.

Then we left Emerson there for her slumber party! Jeff and I went home, and took a nap! It was glorious, and felt so indulgent to nap at 4pm. And then we got ready to go out for my birthday date night. We had appetizers at the Fox & Stag in midtown, and then walked down & across the street for dinner at Kool Beans. (Our nap put us later than planned so we did apps first, since we knew there’d be a wait for dinner.) We also figured since this was one of the few nights we go out just the two of us, that we’d really just go all out, and we had so much fun!

By the time we made it over to Look Beanz, we did indeed have to wait about 30-45 minutes, and since some bar seats opened up first, we said that was fine. It turned out to be pretty cool, since we got to sit and watch them cook all the extremely amazing looking food all night!

We ordered one peppered flank steak topped with gorgonzola butter, with onion rings & mashed potatoes, and one sunflower-crusted trout topped with herb butter, with roasted potatoes & crispy kale, and we shared both meals. And it was all sooooo good. Both of our favorite was the trout & kale, followed closely by the onion rings with remolaude (sauce not pictured). The steak was a bit more rare than I usually go for, but it was still really good.

We also splurged and ordered the chocolate torte, even though we were stuffed to the brim at this point. And it did not disappoint.

We had a great date night, laughing and telling jokes, eating a late, leisurely dinner at 8:30pm (we usually around 6:30/6:45), and enjoying am adult-only evening. We missed our tiny girl, but we had a great time together!

And now that I’m stuffed so full I might pop, we’re gonna have an at-home movie night, where you know I’ll fall asleep in about 30 minutes….