Second Tuscan Meal

The sweetest little matching girlies this morning, each sitting on a stack of mommy’s overflowing books.

Had all my little dishes and toppings and everything I needed today for my white chicken chili leftovers for lunch. This saved/re-heated in the microwave really well, so I’m just hoping the portion I froze will save/re-heat well too.

Addison made a cute little jellyfish at school today. And you guys, she knows how to spell her name already!! Her current teacher Ms. Alicia is really good at what she does, and she’s done a great job with Addie in just a couple of months already!

(I don’t know what’s wrong with the beginning of my video, but I can’t get it to download/upload correctly where hear her say the “A,” which she does do, it just messes up trying to get it into this post…)

 

 

I shared my September reading wrap-up today, and last month was a good month! I kinda accidentally read nothing but cutesy rom-coms, almost half of which were also accidentally Lynn Painter books.

When we got home, I immediately got started on dinner. I made another new recipe tonight, for a one-dish Tuscan Orzo & Chicken bake, and this turned out so super good and perfect.

While the casserole was baking in the oven, Emmie helped me put away this completed puzzle, and then I got started sorting out the pieces to get started on a new one.

This is the puzzle I got at the thrift store a week or so ago, for $1.98. I was shocked & pleasantly surprised today when I opened the box and found the bag inside completely unopened, and brand new! It’s rare to find such a nice puzzle for so cheap at the thrift store (it’s actually really good quality too), but even more rare to find a brand new one!

We also did the girls’ bath time really quickly before dinner was ready, so that they were all cleaned up and ready for bed, once we finished our later-than-usual dinner. (I almost never bake casseroles on weeknights, since they take so long, and we have so little time after work before the girls’ bedtime, but today I made exception for a recipe I just really wanted to try.) And yeah, this turned out so stinking good. And just by chance, this was my second “Tuscan” recipe in two weeks, with that Tour of Tuscany soup I made last week.

The fresh fancy shaved parm & fresh basil on top really took it over the edge too. (Fresh basil is my favorite herb, and it was so good.) A light squeeze of fresh lemon would have been really good too, if I had had any.

Both girls cleaned their bowls, and Addie actually had seconds. Jeff was outside working on the car while we ate, so it was just me and the fresh-from-the-bath little girlies.

While I put away all of the leftovers and got the kitchen counter cleaned up, I head them in my room together, and went to find them like this, with Emmie reading a book to Addie before their bedtime.

I plan to share two of these three containers with Megan and Bo, so that it doesn’t go to waste since I probably couldn’t eat this much the rest of the week. (Jeff isn’t a fan of orzo, so he wouldn’t want this…)

Jeff did come inside and take a dinner break, and at the meatloaf leftovers from his mom’s house a few days ago. He rested for a bit, and went back outside to keep working. We’ve been down to one car for the past week or so while his car has been down, but he finally got the parts in the mail today that he had ordered and been waiting on, but it’ll probably still take him another couple of nights before he’s back up and running.

I was able to easily get both girls to sleep, by just cuddling up in the middle of the couch with one of them on each side of me, and putting on one of the sleepy time videos on YouTube that always gets us all to sleep. I carried them each back to their beds and turned on their sound machines, and their both snoozing away.

Jeff is still outside working on his car, so I’m going to continue watching “The Menendez Brothers” documentary on Netflix for now.