Turkish Pasta

Cutie little girlies in new matching Christmas dresses before church this morning! Jeff was on the tech team today, so he went early, and the girls and I came at “regular” time, after they had some of the leftover hot cocoa pancakes I had made yesterday.

And both girls were wearing their cute new Christmas claw clips Grammy got them at the craft show last weekend.

Then we had to take a quick family photo all together after dinner, since were were all matching and coordinated in our Christmassy reds & greens!

We left Emerson at church with the rest of the little Christmas choir kiddos, where they had lunch and another rehearsal today. I was craving a buffalo chicken salad, so I got the Buffalo Bleu from Zaxby’s, and Jeff had their Zensation (the Asian inspired one), which is his fave.

My buffalo sauce was super spicy today, so I went back up to grab a water refill, and saw a little sign for fried cheesecake bites with strawberry dipping sauce, so I mentioned that to Jeff when I got back. And he just had to go put in an order for them, and they were absolutely delicious.

And this cool girl wore her sunnies (always upside down with her), and ate a chocolate chip cookie.

This afternoon passed in a sleepy blur…. We didn’t start nap time until about 2pm, and then I had to fight Addie to sleep for about 30 minutes, laying together in my bed. Then we slept until Jeff woke us both up at 5pm! Meanwhile, he had gone back to the church to pick up Emmie, and folded a large basket of tiny girl clothes. When I woke up, Jeff and Emmie were playing video games together, so Addie and I just watched them for a few minutes, before I started working on dinner.

Last Sunday, at like 6am, I saw a video on TikTok for this girls’ mom’s version of Turkish pasta and it looked sooo amazing. Since then, the video has gone like mega viral (16 million views!), and I’ve seen countless videos since then all making the same (and this one that’s supposedly the more authentic version), and also plenty more videos of people putting their own spin on it. From the very first time I saw the video, I knew I wanted to make it, and put the ingredients in my Walmart grocery list pretty much immediately. And tonight was finally the night! I used all three of these videos I’ve linked to create my own perfect version, and I honestly LOVED it.

While I was cooking, Jeff was putting up the Christmas tree! But again, that’s as far as we made it tonight. Maybe tomorrow we’ll finally get it decorated.

I made the girls both try it at least, but they didn’t like it. So instead, I made them little bowls of butter noodles. Jeff liked it, but just didn’t want the fresh toppings. I ended up putting more tomatoes & parsley on mine, and another squeeze of lemon, plus a little splash of the pasta water I had saved, just in case. And really, truly, I thought it was so delicious.

And look how beautiful, and Christmassy, it looks close-up! I had also wanted some fresh mint to put on top, but Walmart claimed they were out yesterday, and I was too sleepy to run to Publix for it this afternoon. Next time I try this, I wanna try to make it with ground lamb (if I can find some; Walmart doesn’t carry it), and definitely the fresh mint too.

The girls were running wild after dinner, so we let them play and be crazy for a while. I got all the leftovers put away and the countertop cleaned up, and Jeff worked on a few other chores. I made some hot tea for me, Jeff and Emmie, and we started working on a cute new Christmas puzzle. Someone gave me this as a Christmas present last year, and it’s gonna be a tricky one to put together over the next few weeks, with all that dark blue sky and bright white snow.

Pennie was just being so cute and sweet sitting on the couch, waiting for all the pets and loves on our way back to do the bedtime routine.

Emmie and I are really loving this Boxcar Children book we’re reading together every night.

She had a few really perfect curls in the underlayers of her hair, that I kept playing with, and she wanted me to take a picture so she could see them. Just such sweet little ringlets.

Jeff has been trying to get Addison to sleep for quite some time now, so I need to go check on them, to see if she finally gave up the fight. We have already laid out the girls’ clothes for tomorrow, but I have some dishes I need to wash before I can settle down to relax a little bit…