Tornado Warning Day

Well, with all the schools, daycares, city offices and State offices finally closed today, we had ourselves a strange little tornado day. And somehow, the majority of my pictures today all revolve around a vast amount food… Starting with bagels, scmhear and pepper peach jelly for breakfast.

Then we just lazed around for a while…. and I eventually got some chicken started on the crock pot, for tacos for dinner. I used another jar of the “salsa” I attempted to make a month or so ago, that I had frozen back then and thawed out over night.

And while I was at it, I also made a tiny little egg casserole, like the one I made one day last week, for me to have for breakfast the rest of the week.

We changed the sheets on Emerson’s bed this morning, and then after that, she fixed up her own bed, and then went around to all the other beds, “setting” those as well. (She calls it “set the bed” instead of “make the bed,” and I love that.)

And then a little before 11am, we started getting all the texts and alerts saying we were in a tornado warning, so we calmly gathered some pillows, blankets, kids & a dog, and headed to the hallway. Jeff also grabbed the mattress off Addie’s crib, since we didn’t have a way to block off that end of the hallway, with no door down there. We spent about 20-30 minutes listening to the thunder, seeing the power flicker a couple of times, and keeping the girls happy and giggling. And then we were in the clear, thank the Lord!

We did a bit of a random sandwich/leftover smorgasbord for lunch for everyone, the Jeff got Addison down for a nap, and Emerson put herself down for a nap, and I laid down on the couch in an attempt to sleep. I never could fall asleep, so I just got my Kindle back out and read for about an hour. While the girls were still asleep, I popped in my earbuds, set my phone on the windowsill above the sink, and watched part of the season 45 finale of Survivor and washed some dishes.

Emmie woke up after an hour and a half or so, and her and I cuddled on the couch to watch the last part of Survivor together. Then when Addie finally woke up, we decided to make some banana orange smoothies, using some oranges from our backyard tree. And this turned out so so good! We poured out three smoothies, and all of us took turns sharing with Addie as she wandered from person to person.

After a random wardrobe change for Emmie, we embarked on our next culinary project, making baked PB&J oatmeal. I saw a video about it the other day, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. We used slightly too much PB, but it still turned out really good overall, and I would definitely try this out again, and even look up some other flavor/mix-in options for the future.

While the oatmeal was baking, I was shredding the crock pot chicken, cooking some yellow rice on the stove, and microwaving some black beans. And these chicken tacos were so juicy and delicious.

Oh and here’s how the baked oatmeal turned out.

The girls played a while after dinner, and then we got them in the bathtub to get scrubbed up and clean. We got them both in fresh nightgowns, and watched Bluey cuddled up on the couch. We forgot about the book Emerson was supposed to read before going back to school, so we did that together at bedtime, before doing prayers and lullabies.

Today ended up being a really nice storm day all together, not really doing much at all, just enjoying being at home in our safe, dry, warm house, eating yummy food and reading books and watching tv. Praising the Lord we were safe, and never even lost power! And now tomorrow, we’ll finally, actually get back to our normal routines.