Echocardiogram & Stroganoff

Look at this sweet baby, with her little Pretzel pup, and her stuffed “Stoopy” pup (which is how she pronounces “Snoopy”), watching a quiet “Silent Night” YouTube video, very calmly this morning, which Jeff and I got coffee & lunches ready before heading out.

At school, we grabbed her a chocolate chip muffin, she chose the spot for this morning’s photos in her new classroom, and she was a happy camper!

I had a yummy sandwich and other such snacks for lunch today, and filled in all the important things on my new work-calendar, like birthdays, holidays, & pay days, and replaced it on my wall.

I know I’ve talked about work a lot more than usual lately, but there’s just a lot going on! We found out today that another co-worker from my unit is leaving for a new job in two weeks, and then we’ll have three vacancies in our 8-person unit. On top of that, a 4th lady will be out for six weeks for surgery recovery, so we’ll be operating with a skeleton crew for a while. And holy smokes it’s going to be insane. Please say a prayer for me and my unit!

Emerson had a good day at school today. When these first two photos were sent to us, the caption said, “It’s too bright, come over here!” which means that’s what Emerson was saying to her teacher while taking these photos.

I got off work early today at 2:15, picked up Emerson from school, and headed for her every-six-months cardiology check-up. Jeff met us there, and we saw Dr. Vining, who has been her pediatric cardiologist since she was only three days old. (If you’re new here or don’t know, she was born with a small hole in her heart, called a Ventricular Septal Defect, or VSD. It’s small & loud {which is actually a good thing}, but she has these semi-regular appointments to monitor it through EKG’s & echocardiograms.)

(All of these leads in the photo below are for the EKG.)

We had to wait a little while for her turn with the echocardiogram, so we watched a little bit of the original Lady & the Tramp on daddy’s phone, from Disney+. And that book she’s holding, is also Lady & the Tramp, that she found in the waiting room.

She had a good check-up, and things are mostly still the same. Her left ventricle is just slightly enlarged, but just barely and Dr. Vining isn’t concerned with it right now. We will go back again for more measurement in six months. Please join us to specifically pray that the left ventricle shrinks down a little on it’s own, before our next visit.

After we finished up at the doctor’s office, we headed home, but made one quick stop at Winn Dixie first, for an ingredient for dinner that Walmart didn’t have the other day when I did my grocery pick-up order. (I used to shop at this Winn-Dixie for the first three years of our marriage, and going back there today made me nostalgic for our first two little rental homes and our years as newlyweds!) And we still made it home earlier than usual, which was so nice!

This goofball found these little kinder eggs, and thought she needed one, so she grabbed it. We also saw little bites were BOGO, so of course we had to pick up a couple of boxes.

And y’all know how I love a beautiful sky with lots of puffy, sunshine-y clouds!

For dinner, I made this recipe for Instant Pot Beef Stroganoff, and it turned out great! This is one of my favorite food bloggers/Instagrammer’s, as I’ve mentioned before, and I like so many of her recipes. And this one turned out soooo good. Nana actually came over to eat with us while PopPop was in a church meeting, and she helped me chop veggies while I sauteed the beef. Also, I have to stand on a stool while cooking in the Instant Pot, because it’s so tall on top of the counter!

While the pot cooked the meal, Emmie found our own copy of Lady & the Tramp, and got Nana to read it to her.

This was really delicious you guys! We all ended up getting seconds, with still enough leftover for Jeff and I to each take a bowl for lunch tomorrow.

Tiny girl had to sit in my lap for dinner tonight, but she ate really well!

Nana helped get Emmie in her jammies (Lady & the Tramp of course, for the theme of the day), and then she headed home. We read three books, and a few Bible stories, and Emmie was just being so sweet and silly.

After prayers & lullabies, I washed up all the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Jeff got a load of laundry started, and we’ve got a few other things to take care of tonight, before we can settle down for the night. Today feels like it’s been an extremely busy day, so I’m grateful it’s time to rest now!