Octopus Army

Both girls completely slept through the night last night, despite the late-night fireworks. Which means Jeff and I also got to sleep through the night, so praise the Lord for that! The girls even slept late today, and had to be woken up at 7:15, to get them ready for school. But they were both in such a great mood, just the happiest little girls!

I walked into my office this morning to find my seat filled with 6 GALLONS of can tabs from my boss! Her husband and all his buddies have a little picture of Emerson above their collection bucket, and always save them for us, to donate to the Ronald McDonald House. We really need to make a trip back to Jax to drop them off, because we have sooooo many.

And then my friend Jeanne came down and surprised me with a literal army of crocheted octopi. When she brought me the giant crocheted stuffed strawberry last week, I mentioned how the stem looked like an octopus, and she was like, “Well hey if you would like an octopus, I’ve got some at home already!” She loves making these and had done them all a while back, and they were just waiting for a home. So I picked my fave colors to sit on my desk, and I’m going to give a few to the girls, and then I’ll give some to the triplets, and then maybe I’ll let Emmie give out some to some of her friends. They’re just so cute!

Leftover sesame curry chicken and rice with green beans that I made last Friday night, was still super delicious for my lunch today.

Got a couple of really cute pictures of Addie Pie from her school teachers today.

When we got home today after picking up the girls, there was a package on our carport steps, with Emerson’s name on it! Turns out, it was a birthday gift from her very favorite preschool teacher from Growing Room, Ms. Quanicia! She is always so good about remembering Emmie and being so sweet to her. And Emmie loved all the things she got for her, of course!

There was no Wednesday night church tonight (or next week), to give everyone a little summer break. So we just hung out at home for a change. While I was working on all the dinner stuff, I also diced up a whole watermelon, to have some with dinner, and put some in a Tupperware to save, and put some in a small Tupperware to make a little watermelon feta salad for me to take to work. (Emerson told me I wouldn’t need both of those larger containers, and she was right.)

We had BBQ pulled pork, shells & cheese, green beans, and watermelon, and it was all so good, and the girls both ate really well, and even had seconds of some things. The best part was trying to teach Addison how to say “watermelon,” which was a lot like Phoebe trying to teach Joey how to speak French on “Friends.” 🤣

 

 

After dinner, we had so much fun taking the girls outside to play with bubbles. They ran around chasing them and popping them, and just going wild all over the front yard for a while.

I edited this TikTok together really quick as Emmie and I snuggled up in bed before her bedtime routine. She helped me pick the song, and even edited my caption over my shoulder (and honestly did correct it and made it better). My caption said, “Bubbles at dusk in the summer seem pretty magical to my little ones.”

 

Then they had to go check out what Daddy was doing to the car, before we headed back inside.

I didn’t get a chance to finish up the watermelon salad I had planned to make before dinner, so I took a few minutes to throw it together. I didn’t have any raw red onions anymore (since I randomly decided to try my hand at making homemade pickled red onions the other day), but I added watermelon, cucumber, feta, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and salt. And then I packed a tiny container of the  pickled red onion, because it’s good with it, but I didn’t want it marinate the whole tub and completely overpower everything. It’s really good though, like way better than you would expect, and all these ingredients blend really well.

Emerson wanted to wear the new nightgown from Ms. Q, and insisted on putting on the eye mask with it as well.

And then she legitimately slept in the eye mask as well.

All that bubble-chasing in the front yard really wore the girls out, and they were both asleep super quick and easy tonight. For the last two nights, we changed out the blanket in Addie’s bed, and she’s slept through the night both nights. Seems like such a small thing, but hey, if it works, it works! So we’re hoping she completely sleeps through the night again tonight too.

And here’s a quick recap of all the books I read in June. My favorite was certainly Fourth Wing (fantasy + dragons, obvs it would be my fave), but The Bodyguard was also a really cute little rom-com, if that’s more your jam.