Winter Sunshine

Look how excited Addison was to bring her teachers their Christmas gifts today!

And coincidentally, Addie and the triplets were all wearing Grinch t-shirts today. Addie was being weird about taking a picture with them (she wouldn’t even move from the spot she was standing in), so that’s why she’s by herself in front of them.

Jeff called me at the office this morning, asking to take me out on a Christmas lunch date, to his favorite hibachi place. At Japanica, you can order hibachi from the menu, without sitting at the grill tables, for a really decent price actually! And they do the BOGO sushi rolls too. So we ordered some of both, and shared everything, and it was all really yummy.

We were super squinty in the sunshiney afternoon.

Daycare was closing early today for Christmas, so I got off work early to pick up Addison. And Grammy & Grandmommie brought Emerson there for her to come back home with me after her sleepover last night. When we got home, we ended up pretty much just going straight to the backyard because it was so nice outside. We actually stayed outside for about two hours, with the girls just playing together so sweetly and running around in the grass and leaves, making “traps” and “fires” and finding “weapons.”

I just loved sitting in the sunshine up on the hill, watching them play and use their imaginations and enjoy being out in nature. I read a little bit on my phone’s Kindle app while they played, but mostly I just soaked up the rare winter sunshine, and watched my little cuties play together.

A couple of weeks ago, I threw some chicken, onions, cream of chicken soup, and I-don’t-remember-what-else into the crock pot, and then served it on top of baked potatoes. But it made a LOT of creamy chicken, so I froze a nice little batch of it. Then today, I thawed it out during the day, and dumped it back into the crockpot when the girls and I got home. My friend Heather told me about these frozen egg noodles that she uses to make an easy chicken & dumplings situation. I’d never used them before, but I just boiled them, and then mixed them into the chicken mixture, and this was really, really good. We’ll just call it chicken & noodles, but we’ll definitely be making it again sometime.

Jeff actually spent most of the evening/dinner-time cleaning up the front room where the boys’ bedroom is, so that things would be neat and tidy and ready for them, because they’re coming tomorrow! He also started a load or two of laundry, and Emerson helped me clean up the living room, and then I vaccuumed up as well.

My little girls really wore themselves out with all of our playtime this afternoon and evening. So I went to get Emerson ready for bedtime, and after we did her usual routine, I came back out to find Addie laying like this across Jeff’s lap, with a pillow and “a cozy” (which is what she calls blankets recently, and I love it), and her arms thrown back, completely asleep.

I actually left her there to sleep more while I’ve been writing this post, but I’m going to go take her back to her room now. We’re very close to finishing our little Christmas puzzle, so I’m going to work on that, in hopes we can finish it tonight.