The Breakfast Club

Sister pics on Nana’s front steps tonight, with their tiny doggie, Noel!

After sending Addie to Nana’s house, and sending Daddy off to work, Emmie and I ended up having ourselves a little girls morning! She had a mid-morning dentist appointment, and it just made the most sense, with everything else going on, for me to take the whole day off, so I did! I treated my breakfast-loving-girlie to a meat & 3 plate from Early’s Kitchen, and she was in breakfast heaven!

Then we stopped by The Frother’s Daughter coffee truck to pick up my morning coffee, and I also earned this adorable glass from the Summer Sips rewards punch card! Today I tried “The Breakfast Club” (an iced shortbread & caramel dirty chai with whip, maple drizzle, and a cinnamon sugar drizzle) from their August specials menu, and it was soooo good. I always love chai, but this one was especially delicious. Also, Emmie loved that the name was perfectly fitting after our little breakfast date! (She has no idea it’s an old movie from the 80’s, but one day down the road we can watch that together when she’s much older!)

Next up was her dental cleaning at her regular dentist office. We somehow got off schedule with her twice-yearly cleanings, so when I called yesterday to schedule, they were like, “Well we have an opening tomorrow morning!” So we just decided to go for it, rather than having to schedule it at the next opening a few months out. She got x-rays and a cleaning today, and everything looked good, with no cavities. They reiterated the technique for her to brush her top teeth, up above her brackets, just to make sure there’s as little plaque buildup as possible.

Next was a trip to Kids Pointe consignment shop to see what we could find. We got two dresses for Emmie, one for Addie, two shorts and one skirt for Addie, and Emmie picked out a book.

We browsed the Goodwill bookstore but didn’t find anything, but then we hit the jackpot of books at the City Walk Urban Thrift shop on N. Monroe. Emmie found three books (that are only 50 cents each), and I picked out these nine for my collection, that were about $1.40 each today, instead of $1.99, because books were on sale. Total, we only spent $15 for 13 books, so that’s a great deal! I’ve only read two of these but wanted to add them to my collection. A few I’d heard of and wanted to read, and a few just looked good. And I plan to share one or two with Meg, since she likes to borrow books from my personal library. (Also, on a related note – in order for your personal book collection to be considered a personal library, “they” say {no idea who} you have to own 1,000 books…. Sooo I’m gonna attempt to do that. Not quickly or anything, and not just collecting random stuff, but I’ll do it slowly over however long it takes, and have fun building my library!)

OK so then we picked up Jeff from his office, and went over to Gilchrist for Emerson’s 3rd grade orientation! I can’t believe she turned 8 last month, and will be starting 3rd grade next week. I’m pretty sure she’s still supposed to be like, three years old at daycare, toddling around. Instead, she’s turned into this beautiful big girl who’s so excited to blast off (pun intended) into a new school year!

Her teacher seems like a really sweet lady, and there are a few kids in her class that Emmie not only knows, but is already good friends with. In third grade, there are pairs of third grade teachers, and the kids will have two teachers, and even switch classrooms for a few subjects. This starts getting them ready for the full-on switch-a-roo stuff they start doing in middle school, but in a very controlled environment, with just two rooms that connect in the middle through a storage room, between just two teachers.

After we left orientation, we made a quick run to Publix to get something I needed for dinner that Walmart didn’t put in my order last weekend. Jeff and I shared a $6.99 turkey Pub Sub (on sale this week!), and Emmie had an entire carton of popcorn chicken for lunch. By the time we finished all of that, I was exhausted a needed some afternoon caffeine. 7Brew was doing a special today of two drinks for $8, so obviously we had to run by there. We headed to Nana’s to pick up Addie, where we settled down to chill for a bit, and Nana and I both accidentally fell asleep in their recliners for about 20-ish minutes 😉

We trekked back across town towards our house, so that I could cook dinner for the first time this week. I made a “cattle drive casserole” (also known as a “John Wayne casserole” sometimes) that I saw a video for on TikTok last week. After getting it in the oven to bake for 45 minutes, I read for 20 minutes, then put away clean dishes, and started washing up the dirty dishes I had created in making this meal. Then I prepped some romaine lettuce for salads, just in time for the casserole to finish baking. You’re supposed to bake it covered in foil, but I didn’t have any, so the cheese got pretty dark on top, but I like a crusty cheese top, so that was fine with me! The whole thing was super simple, and came out really yummy.

The girls had a bath after dinner, and we got them into fresh nightgowns with their pretty little hairs all brushed out and curled up on the ends. While we watched a couple episodes of Bluey, Addie finished her dinner, Emmie did some journaling, I got my book back out.

Emmie wanted to finish her page in my bed, and Addie found a notebook and colored pencil, so they could lay side-by-side working on their little pages. They were very super cute about the whole thing.

So that was clearly a big, busy day, and I’m worn out! I’m not sure if the leftovers from dinner were put away earlier or not, so I need to go check on that, and maybe make a hot tea before bedtime…