Dips & Apps

Ryan and Gabe woke up early this morning to hit the road back to South Carolina. The girls made sure to get a few extra hugs, and we sent them on their way, with hopes to see them again soon.

We had a lot of chores to catch up on this morning, from putting away Christmas gifts, to laundry, to cleaning a very messy leaving room, and plenty of other things. We spent all morning and early afternoon doing as much as we could, and even gathered up some stuff to donate.

Emerson helped me “set the couch” which is what she always calls it (and she also says “set the bed”), and I put some cutesy things on a cutesy tray on the coffee table. My mama got me another beautiful copy of Little Women for my collection, which I think now makes four different versions. I didn’t set out to specifically collect multiples of this book, but hey, I like that idea now!

I absolutely love the afternoon sunshine in the wintertime, especially streaming in the front dining room windows on all my pretty little houseplants.

And for the first time in a year or two, my little Christmas cactus actually got a beautiful bloom! I actually need to re-pot this in a bigger pot, cuz he’s getting a little too big for where it’s at now.

After all of our chores and Addie’s nap time, we went over to Grammy & Papa’s house for a little family dinner. We typically always do a New Year’s Day meal together, but Meg’s little family was out of town, so we did it tonight instead. When we were planning what to eat for the meal, Meg was suggested a baked potato bar with dips & apps, and said, “The holidays made me realize how much I love dips and I decided I don’t have them enough!” I replied with “Yeah, I’m always a big dips & apps kinda gal!” So we each decided a few things we could bring/make, for a snacky kind of dinner.

I brought all the stuff to make my contributions at Grammy’s house when we got there. I made my “infamous” olive cheese bread (a Pioneer Woman recipe I love making at Thanksgiving but didn’t this year), and also my mom’s recipe for sausage & cheese balls, because those are my favorite. Except my mom ended up making the sausage & cheese balls for me, while I did the bread, but it all worked out great, and all turned out delicious!

While the bread and meatballs were baking the oven, my dad made us all some little espresso drinks. Mom & Meg just drink theirs with some sugar, like a Cuban coffee, but I asked for an egg nog latte, which he did a great job making – it was so good! But now hopefully I can still get to sleep at a good time tonight, since I had this little latte at like 4:45 pm!

So we had the baked potato bar with toppings, olive cheese bread, sausage balls, hot Alabama dip, buffalo chicken dip and smoked cream cheese with pepper jelly (we had those last two things listed before dinner even started, so they’re not on the plate).

Grandmommie had given Hayden his bottle before dinner, and then got him to sleep for a little nap while most of us were eating. But when he woke up, he was so smiley and happy and just chatting with everybody.

Addie came out as Super Girl, and the triplets kept announcing her over and over again.

Meg and her family left first tonight, to go home and get their girls showered at their own house. We stayed later though, and got the girls into the bathtub there at Grammy’s house. After bath time, Grammy made them some hot chocolate in the tiny espresso mugs, and they thought that was pretty special.

Someone was exhausted and knocked out in the car on the ride home, while baby sister just chatted with us the whole way home.

They both settled down to watch Bluey on the couch when we got home, but you can see on their faces how tired they both are.

I did Emmie’s bedtime routine with her in her room like usual, and came out to find Addie and Pennie both passed out on the couch together like this.

While we didn’t get to the point of taking down the Christmas tree yet today (hoping we get it finished up tomorrow), I did get all of the other Christmas decor put away, and got all of the “regular” stuff put back out. I also added two new little decor items that I got for Christmas – this light-up book stack, and a new tea pot that looks like a cozy little village.

Jeff has gone to bed early tonight, so I think I’m gonna stay up late watching some of the new episodes of season six of “Virgin River” laying on the heating pad wrapped in a cozy blanket, because it is cold!!