Home Sweet Home

Today was my day to stay home and take care of the Tater Tot. We had such a great day together, doing all sorts of things around the house, and in the kitchen, and running a few errands. We even got to make a special visit to some of our nearby family… We started off with cinnamon rolls. And I am loving her crazy bed head.

Then she noticed our new kitchen mats. I ordered these super squishy, “anti-fatigue” mats from Wayfair last week during their big Way Day super sale. They weren’t supposed to be delivered for another week, but we were surprised with a delivery last night at literally 10:20pm (what in the world?!), and they feel so great under my feet now! I just move one of them around from the stove to the sink to the counter as needed. But now I’m not sure why I didn’t just buy three of them?!

After breakfast, we put some eggs on to “boil” in our little egg cooker, and then went off to play for a while. Also, I saw these at Walmart last weekend, for less than $9! I got mine on Amazon, but it was more like $19!

We made more egg salad for our lunch today…

And then went shopping to pick out some birthday presents for Grammy.

It rained a TON on our way there, and while we were shopping. So when we came out, she wanted to play around in the puddles a little before getting back in the car to head home.

We had lunch together, just hanging out at the kitchen counter, and then got Emmie ready for her naptime.

 

Jeff took his lunch break with me and we watched some our favorite travel YouTuber’s, until he went back to work, and I took a short little 30-minute nap on the couch with Pretzel in my lap.

After Emerson’s nap, we made a short trip over to Generations Church, to have a quick visit with Aunt Meggie and Uncle Bo! (Bo is the children’s pastor there, and Meg is doing her WFH work at their church, instead of their house.)

We came back home to do a little more work in the kitchen… I had a bag of shredded cabbage, and I was just going to “fancy” it up by grating some carrots into it and using store-bought cole slaw dressing. But I taste-tested the dressing, and did not like it. So I Googled & found a super easy recipe really quickly, and just so happened to have the few easy ingredients on hand. And it turned out much better than the bottled stuff.

This crazy child was snacking on some raw carrots while I grated them, and decided to try dipping them in the mayo. Seriously so crazy.

We did a late-afternoon bath time, with her last dino egg bath bomb. She got this tiny green dino out of it, and this one is the cutest, in my opinion! She stayed and played in the bathtub for close to 30 minutes, just completely entertaining herself and keeping busy and coloring on the walls with her tub crayons.

I threw some sweet potato fries into the oven to bake, then she helped me update our letter board, and loved on Pretzel.

Once the fries were close to finished, I got started on the main event – these mahi mahi burgers from Trader Joe’s. They come frozen, and you can cook them a number of ways, but I chose to pan-sear them on my grill pan. Then I put them on toasted Hawaiian burger buns, with mayo, lettuce & this peach salsa I found at Walmart, and it was soooo good. I was honestly a little skeptical of the burgers, but Jeff and I were both pleasantly surprised with how yummy they were! I usually try to rotate our meals so that we don’t eat the same thing too close, but I’m gonna go buy more of these soon, so we can eat them again while we still have this delicious fresh salsa!

 

I was actually pretty impressed with how well this dinner turned out! This was only about the third time I’ve ever even made cole slaw in my life, and although it’s not gonna win any awards or anything, it was still good! (Emmie tried one bite of my fish and didn’t like it, but she filled up on cole slaw & fries, with plenty of ketchup.)

We did some video calls after dinner with Ryan & Gabe, and then Nana & PopPop, and as we hung up, we rushed outside to see this amazingly gorgeous, cotton candy sunset! We stayed out in the glorious weather (we’ve had our windows open since about 2pm), watching the beautiful sky, for about 15 minutes, and it was so nice and just a lovely time together with the three of us.

Emmie grabbed herself an apple Nutri-grain bar, and then we headed back to her room to get going on the bedtime routine. Everything went smooth, and even though she “wasn’t sleepy, and didn’t want to go to bed,” she laid down easily, and has been quiet as a church mouse ever since then.

I got the kitchen spic & span & sparkling clean while Jeff worked on my website a little bit. I lit a new candle that Emerson picked out for us at the store today, and put a tiny tealight in the tiny white cottage I found at the Dollar Tree. It was just looking so comfy and cozy, and I was loving it. The new candle is “blood orange,” and it’s a really great mix of citrus and fresh, without being too overbearing. Emmie picked well!

I found this adorable tiny white cottage at the Dollar Tree today, and it’s just so cute and charming! Wishing they would have had more than one. But our Pullen’s Cozy Corner is definitely Home Sweet Home!