Muffins & Finger Painting

OK first, I want to share my late-night snack from last night, which was the last slice of my homemade bread, toasted & spread with this Trader Joe’s pumpkin butter, because wow it was delicious. And now I’m thinking I should make another loaf of bread this weekend, right?!

For today’s pandemic baking, I took the easy road, and just used a couple of “just add milk” packets for lemon poppyseed muffins. Super easy, and super delish!

While Emerson was stirring, she just said, “I’m the muffin man!” And I almost died laughing. I quickly grabbed my phone to video her, hoping she would do it again, and I caught it on video! (Check my Instagram stories.)

She didn’t want to try the muffins (she doesn’t like seeds or nuts or “bits”), but she was happy to eat some cereal at the counter while the muffins baked, and then I sliced her up some fresh strawberries too.

She was playing with her little Rosie the Unicorn, when she suddenly turned around to me and said, “I wanna put on my oonicorn costume!” So we grabbed it out of the closet, and then I had to “fly her around” all over the house, which means I had to hold her up and run around the house, with her arms stretched out in front of her. And it was fun but tiring!

So our next activity was more subdued, speed-wise, but definitely higher up on the messy scale! I try to be such a cool stay-at-home-part-time-daycare Mom, and let her do fun, messy things she would do at school, like finger-paint, even though my anxiety over the mess is mostly off the charts! But we did good, and she had a blast, and it all washed off her hands (and legs), so we’re good!

After getting cleaned up from arts & crafts time, we put on her purple Growing Room t-shirt, for spirit day Friday! When I was explaining it to her, she asked if I was going to wear a purple shirt too, so I told her sure! And then we spent a few minutes just running circles in the driveway, before heading inside for lunch.

Oh today was also supposed to be crazy hair day at school as well, but three semi-color-coordinated hair clips was as crazy as she would let me get. I asked her to let me do funny ponytails, but she wasn’t feeling that today. She did however want to keep that cupcake hair clip in, so that’s super crazy with the purple outfit, haha 😉

She at a TON of food for lunch (all of the food on her plate above, plus a large handful of the “Poppables” chips, which she calls “silly chips”) and then we finally headed off to her room for nap time. She calls this area over her “my little spot,” and always loves to do our bedtime stories and prayers here. She got super cuddly there today, and was so sweet laying there with her eyes closed when I said her nap time prayers. She was good to go and ready to lay down after lullabies (and then I ran off to work), and then she slept for about an hour and twenty minutes.

Work was crazy, crazy this afternoon, and by 5pm, when most everyone else left, things were finally calm for a bit. I stayed until 6pm though, and that hour of mostly-silence and calmness was much appreciated.

I hadn’t planned ahead for tonight’s dinner, so I didn’t leave anything out at home for Jeff to get started on. So instead, we picked up some take-out for dinner, and helped support a nearby local restaurant, Super Perros. And that was a nice treat anyways, since we hadn’t gotten food out in the world since the underwhelming Captain D’s from Sunday night. But this was so super yummy!

I ordered it online through EatStreet at 5:52pm right before I left work, and by the time I got there at 6:11pm, I called them and they brought it right out to my car! Their “open” sign wasn’t on, but they were definitely open, and I saw one other car there also picking up food.

We ordered two meals, and it was $21.50, including tax, and they were huge meals! I got the marinated skirt steak with the sweet plaintains on the left, and Jeff got the marinated grilled chicken with tostones on the right, both meals also had rice, beans & salad. Allll the food was delicious, but we both agreed his chicken was better than my steak, and my sweet plantains were better than the tostones.

Emerson had a lot of snacks with Daddy this afternoon, so she wasn’t very hungry, so she just had some white rice from our meals, that she mixed with some leftover yellow rice from last night, and she was good with that.

Tonight’s video call was with Uncle Keith and Aunt Suzanne, and we’ve been missing them! Emerson started off shy on the call (she gets so weirdly shy around people at random times), but she warmed up and was being silly by the end of the call. She also decided she wanted Uncle Keith to take her fishing sometime! (And yes Uncle Keith, I showed her your FB photos, and she laughed and got excited and said, “Unka Keef got a fishy!”)

After dinner and video call, we went back outside to enjoy the nice weather. We only set up one hammock tonight, and I just hung out on the “walamelon blanklet.” (Side note – my injury from last week is still “weeping” so I have to keep gauze taped to my foot at all times. I checked with my friend who is an ER doctor, and he said that’s normal, but it’s so weird to me!)

Of course Emerson needed more snacks before bedtime, so she had some teddy grahams while I read her a few Bible stories. After reading this about Jesus teaching in the temple when he was 12, she said, “Which one is Jesus?” So I pointed to him on the stairs, and she said, “Oh, Jesus is widdle!” and showed me her tiny little fingers pinched together to show how widdle he was. It was precious.

I spent some time washing dishes after getting Emerson down. I started & then returned two different audio books today (I just wasn’t really feeling either of them), and started a third while doing the dishes, so I’m hoping this one works out.

This has been a weird, crazy week, but we made it through. Like I said the other day, even though I’ve had to use my leave time at work, it was worth it for some extra time at home with my precious girl. She’ll go back to school full-time on Monday, and while getting back to a more regular schedule again will be nice, I’ll miss her so much while we have to be a part for an entire day! But before that, we have two more days of nothing but family time this weekend, so I’ll savor as much time together as I can!

Happy Friday night, friends!