First Grade Orientation & More Shopping

The happiest little girls this morning, ready for another day!

Emerson and I dropped off Addison at school, then came back home for breakfast and a few chores and a little bit of chill time. I made her cinnamon sugar toast, and of course made myself some roasted garlic mayo tomato toast. Yummm…I also drizzled the garlic oil from the roasted garlic on top, and that was just an extra good touch.

After breakfast, we relaxed just a little bit, and then I washed up a ton of dishes. If you look in the background of the picture below, you can see a piece of purple construction paper on the wall… She actually made herself her own chore list to do today, and gave herself stickers as she completed tasks like “setting her bed” (that’s what she calls it instead of “making the bed,” and I love it and I don’t ever correct her), brushing her teeth, and a few other things.

Then after we both finished our chores, she helped me get some garlic Parmesan chicken into the crock-pot for tonight’s dinner. And obviously we also added some of our homemade roasted garlic, and some of the garlic oil, as well. (Also, I ordered the Buffalo Wild Wings garlic parm, but got substituted the fancy Kinder’s sauce, and it was really good.)

This is her little pencil case for school this year, and she was very proud of her sticker choices she made while decorating the other day. Wanted me to get pictures of both the top and the bottom, as she packed up her new backpack with all of her supplies.

Also, I spent a little extra time giving her a cute hairstyle today. It took about 10 minutes though, so that was a bit much for a school morning. But I promised her we could keep experimenting and finding some cute, quick ways to do her hair on school mornings.

We did more back-to-school shopping today, but dang, everything was so sparse and picked over already. We completely struck out at Marshall’s (bought nothing), then just got one pair of slip-on shoes from Old Navy.

Then we had better luck at TJ Maxx, and got a few hair things, a clearance bathing suit for next year, and a pack of dresses, and she spent the last of her birthday money on a squishy Kindle pillow with blue-light glasses & unicorn ear buds.

And then it was time for 1st grade orientation at Gilchrist! We found her new classroom, and met her new teacher, and put all of her supplies inside her cute little desk. And then we treated her to an ice cold snack on our way out, at the cute little food trucks out front.

We had a quick lunch with Daddy at Jimmy John’s after we left the school, and continued on with more shopping at Walmart and Target. And what’s a girl to do in large Walmart aisles? Cartwheels of course! It’s kind of hard to find her clothes right now, because she’s anywhere between a 4 of 5T, and can sometimes wear a 6 for length. But the 6’s in the “big girls” sections are usually too big, or too grown up looking, and the 4/5T can be too short (for my liking at least). But we did find a few more things at both stores, plus a quick snack of popcorn and an Icee at Target.

Meanwhile, Addie Pie had herself fun at school today!

After our last shopping stop, it was literally SO HOT and I was so exhausted, we just sat in the car for like 20 minutes, with the a/c on full blast watching TikTok’s together, sucking down tons of ice cold water (oh, we actually drank so much water together today, we had to refill my full 32-oz water bottle three times – once at home this morning, then for the second time at lunch, and for the third time at dinner), enjoying the cool air, and for me, enjoying just sitting down. (My phone said I walked 2 miles today, just shopping and going to orientation!)

And then once I felt like I could actually move again, we went to daycare to pick up Addie Pie.

This little blue-eyed sneaky pants got a cookie, then climbed up on the counter, while I was working on dinner.

I stirred up and shredded the crock-pot chicken, then boiled some noodles and baked some garlic bread, and the got dinner on the table easily. It was so good and so creamy and so garlicky, and everyone ate it really well.

Here’s the spoils of the day, from three stores. Thank you to both Grandmommie and Nana, who donated some funds for back-to-school shopping – this is what you got her! (Well, I paid for a little of this too, but y’all paid for the majority of it, and for that, we are very grateful.)

And to break my heart at the end of the evening, I got the email saying I was wait-listed for the Taylor Swift “Verified Fan” code to buy tickets. So, that means I almost certainly won’t even get a chance to attempt to buy tickets, so that’s a let down for sure. Still crossing my fingers for a tour documentary to be released sometime in the future!

I’m going to need an early bedtime tonight after our busy day today, but it was such a great day! Emerson is so very excited to go back to school, and even said earlier tonight, that she wished it was tomorrow, because she wants to start tomorrow and not wait even one more day. Gonna be praying so hard for her in this new school year, to make new friends, and learn so much new stuff, and connect with her new teacher, and just have an incredible year!