Fresh Rosemary

We didn’t get our sheets & quilt washed & dried in time for bed last night, so we threw on one spare fitted sheet with my large queen-size fleece blanket, and it was actually super cozy. But Emerson woke up two time in the middle of the night – once at 2:15, and again at 3:30. Both times she was kind of half-crying out for me, so I went in there and rocked her while listening to one lullaby song, and got her back to sleep. Then she slept till 8am, so that helped make up for it a bit. Then Emmie wanted to snuggle up with Daddy for a few minutes when she woke up.

We had pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls (and coffee, duh) for breakfast, and they were gooooood.

I forgot to submit my Walmart order the other day for pickup this morning, so instead we actually had to do the grocery shopping for ourselves. We went after breakfast around 10am, so it was still early enough to beat the crowd, so it wasn’t too bad. But we always spend more money when we shop in store, and that definitely happened today.

When we got home, Emerson helped us unload the car, clean out some trash in the car, start a load of laundry, bring all the groceries to the kitchen, bring the trash cans down from the road, and put all the stuff away. She also helped take some of her shoes and things to her room, to tidy up the house a bit.

We had grabbed a rotisserie chicken from the deli to have for lunch, and I whipped up some instant mashed potatoes and some black eyed peas to go with it. But Emmie didn’t want any of that, so it was a good thing we had saved the rest of her cheeseburger from dinner last night.

After lunch, I got Emmie down for her nap, and Jeff headed out to go help an older lady do some computer stuff and phone stuff. While Emmie napped, I cleaned the house more, washed dishes, took a shower, painted my toenails (while drinking iced coffee and listening to my audio book), and wrote half of this blog post. I was very productive, thank you very much, even though I just wanted to read and take a nap myself.

And then even after all of that, Emerson was still napping, so I finally got to sit down and pick up my book for a lite bit.

Look at this little “then & now” collage Google made. Man what a teeny little girl! She was only three months old in the one on the left, and now she’s 28 months old!

A quick photo in this adorable outfit…

And then we went to celebrate our friend Sara & Levon’s daughter, Hazel’s first birthday. Emmie was shy at first, but she eventually warmed up and played with some of the other kids, and was definitely excited when it was finally time for cupcakes!

She helped me pick a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary for our dinner, and she wanted to sniff it. And then she kept repeating “fesh rosie, fesh rosie.” She was trying really hard to say it, but just not quite getting it, but it was adorable.

And then I made a new recipe for dinner – Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup, from my favorite food blogger. And it was sooo delish.

Daddy did a quick run with the vacuum cleaner….

And Emmie stayed well out of danger in the kitchen with me, wearing her earphones. She is fearless out on the playground, but so scared of loud noises!

But then she got lots of snuggles from Daddy while I cooked.

And then they took her rice bucket outside to play with for a while.

I followed the recipe mostly as written, except I added a little extra orzo, extra broth, and the leftover rotisserie chicken from lunch today. Plus, we don’t really like dark meat, so I always use boneless skinless chicken breasts, even if the recipe calls for thighs or whatever… but the leftover of the rotisserie was the dark meat, and that was just enough of the dark meat to make it a little bit fattier and yummier.

But even though I loved it, apparently Jeff doesn’t like orzo, so even though he ate a bowl, he didn’t really want to eat any of the leftovers or anything. And there were a TON of leftovers. I made one large bowl for myself, and then packed up a huge Tupperware bowl to take to the elderly couple next door to us. Turns out, the husband just had shoulder surgery a few days ago, but we didn’t even know it. So they were very thankful and appreciate for the soup we brought them. We stayed and chatted with them for about half an hour, and they’re just the sweetest. Emmie got some M&M’s from them, and she was super excited when they let their new doggie out of the back to come meet us! (I didn’t take my phone over there with us, so I have no photos of this part of the day.)

We came back over and started getting Emerson ready for bed. We had stayed over there longer than we planned to, so we skipped bath time again tonight, and we’ll do it in the morning before church. We watched a night-night video or two, got her jammies on, and she was just being so sweet and precious, and giving Mommy all the loves and kisses.

She was really easy to get to bed tonight, which was good, because I had to get back in the kitchen! I made a second new recipe tonight, to take to Sunday school for breakfast tomorrow. It’s also from my favorite food blogger, for Overnight Cinnamon Apple French Toast Bake. I also enlisted my hubs to help me out, by slicing up the bread while I made the cinnamon apples, and holy cow those smelled sooo good!

I got the casserole all prepped and put together, and it’s “resting” in the fridge overnight. I’ll bake it in the morning before church, and then it gets topped with chopped pecans and powdered sugar. It’s gonna be so yummy and I can’t wait to try it!

Jeff is making us tea now, because I’m coughing up a storm and really need something warm & sweet to soothe my throat before bedtime.