Limo Ride!

Matching little cheetah girls for church today. I went early for worship team rehearsal, and Jeff and the girls came later in time for the service to start.

After church, Emerson had a very special lunch date! To celebrate all the kids that raised $500 or more for the BGMC fun run last month, this group of seven kiddos had a limo ride to lunch with Pastor Bo & Ms. Megan! They went to Momo’s for pizza, and then Loft Pursuits for ice cream, and rode through town in style!

We weren’t quite as fancy, but Jeff, Addison and I went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch, Echalee. Jeff and I love sharing the chicken fajita nachos, with a side of refried beans, and one taco to share. And this was SO good today – they really loaded on all the chicken & veggies on the nachos.

After lunch, I had a quick 30-minute cat nap on the couch, with Pennie curled up near my feet, and then it was time to head back to the church to pickup Emerson. And I decided to bring Pennie for the quick car ride, and she loved it. And Emerson thought it was the greatest thing for Pennie to be there to greet her at the church.

November is Missions Month at GC, and next week, the kids are setting up their own BGMC Missions Market, selling things they make and craft on their own, to raise missions money. So Emmie has been hard at work making her little silicone bracelets to sell next week!

I ended up falling back asleep again while she was making bracelets, and we had a Hallmark Christmas movie playing, and it was 5:30 before I woke up again! And by that time, it was time to get started on dinner. I saw recipe video a couple of weeks ago on my Facebook for Creamy Italian Sausage & Ditalini, and watched it with both girls, and they both thought it looked delicious. So I watched a couple other similar videos, and combined the best parts and decided to make it how I thought our family would like it best.

Once I laid all of this out, Addison was just waking up from her nap as well, and she was like, “Mama I’m too hungry, that’s too many ingredients for you to make!” I assured her it wouldn’t actually take too long, and that it would be worth the wait!

So, you saute diced onion & shallot in olive oil in butter, then add in and brown one pound of ground Italian sausage & a bunch of fresh minced garlic. Add 1 box of chicken broth & 2 cups of water, plus all the seasonings you want (I used salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasonings, garlic & herb seasonings) then one can of diced tomatoes (I used the one with basil, garlic & oregano). When liquid is boiling, add half a box of ditalini pasta and boil for 10 minutes covered. Now for the good parts, add half a block of cream cheese, a big ole serving of the good Parm cheese, and about a cup of heavy cream. Stir together then rip up and add in two giant handfuls of fresh spinach and stir in to wilt. Then top it off with more fresh parm & serve with buttered, toasted French bread!

The girls both totally loved it, and told me I should definitely make it again. Addison actually finished her first little bowl and asked for seconds. And then she finished that second helping too!

After dinner, we had a little fun dancing and singing to our current favorite Jonas Brothers song that we’re obsessed with. Addie specifically has been singing this non-stop this weekend, and we’ve been putting the song on repeat on our car rides.

 

 

Then of course we had to settle down with a couple episodes of Bluey, before we finally got started on our bedtime routine. Both sleepy girls were more than ready for bed, and fell asleep quickly and easily.

I already washed up some dishes earlier while the soup was simmering, but I’ve got plenty more dishes stacked up and waiting. Gonna spend a quick 10 minutes working on that, and then settle down for the night myself…