Between all the responsibilities and commitments Amber has with her super busy family and household that now includes a menagerie of baby labs, kitties and hermit crabs - she and I still manage to carve out a few hours of mother/daughter time.
The other morning we were texting back and forth and zeroed in a all afternoon shopping day later this month AND a lunch date and trip to Central Market for Friday!
It was their Hatch Chili Festival week and I really wanted to go.
Every year I buy lots of things 'Hatch Chili' and most of the time they are too spicy but I still do it!
This year I bought mild fresh hatch chilies and two different jars of Queso - one white and one yellow.
Plus the Hatch Chili Lime Cookies!
I seriously love these!
We shopped for a few things and then had a soup and sandwich lunch from the deli.
Delicious! AND the one on one time - PRICELESS!
Mike's work schedule on Friday allowed for him to do the school pick up so we squeezed in a few extra bonus minutes!
Logan was waiting for me to take her home with me and, since she IS my Mini Me, I picked up something special for our dinner that night.
She had told me about seeing special bags in a section of Target marked 'Dinner For Two.'
She was intrigued with this idea and I knew Central Market carried something similar.
I bought a Dinner for Two for one of our wedding anniversaries and knew they are good.
This one proved to be excellent!
Back to the Bells for a little Puppy Loving!
Amber and her girl puppy Kona!
Granddad was waiting outside on the driveway just watching for us to get home!
We unloaded my stuff from Central Market and then headed to Aldi, Kroger and Family Dollar to pick up the other things on our list.
Dinner was so good! Normally Logan has pizza on Friday nights so we did cook one and that was Louis Dean's main meal while ours was the Dinner for Two deal. Still......she and I each had one small piece of pizza just because it was Friday.
We watched the very same movie the Bells were watching and at pretty much the very same time.
I was reading back in my written diaries from when Amber was a very little girl.
Our Friday night movies with Cokes and Popcorn started when she was 18 months old - and have continued all of her 37 years. I just love that. You never know how long the traditions you start in childhood will last.
Logan asked for theater popcorn with BUTTER!!!
And that's exactly what we had......it was decadent and so so GOOD!
All three of us were in bed by 10:30!
Logan was up a good two hours before me!
I made a rule when the quads were very young that you do NOT wake MeeMaw up in the mornings!
Now that they are older, I need to adjust that rule to - if you are awake for an hour and I am still asleep - you may come in and touch my shoulder to see if I wake up.
I cannot tell you how it made my heart LEAP to see Logan so happy to see me get up!
She will never have to wait that long again and I have a sneaking suspicion that pretty soon I will be the one waiting for HER to wake up!
We had our special coffee together in special cups that Summer bought for me when she was a little girl from the Sample Shop - Vermont pottery cups and saucers.
We even had frothed milk from the frother Jesse gave me for Christmas a few years ago - and that was sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.
We three sat together in the living room with our coffees and did our Bible and devotional readings and then Logan read to us from her book 'Brian's Winter' by Gary Paulsen.
I just so happened to have read that book - along with every single other book Gary Paulsen has written - so it was wonderful to me to see how much Logan was enjoying it!
After our reading, we sat together in the living room admiring all the dolls in the two big cases.
I took this one down of Lucy in the candy factory and I pulled up a little 2-3 minute clip from that episode on YouTube.
One thing led to another and we all watched a couple of old I Love Lucy shows!
Next up was cutting my daily sunflower bouquet and then Logan had a photo shoot among them using her instamatic camera.
We baked a White Dr Pepper Sheet Cake for Pam's birthday dinner Saturday night.
While I worked on the dinner, Logan worked on her very first oil painting.
She is a good helper in the kitchen and got the salad part of Taco salad ready.
Pepper Poppers! Always good!
The long ones are mild hatch chilies with roasted garlic.
YUM!
Happy Birthday to PAM!!!
We had to sandwich this celebration in between her travel adventures!
Last week was Oregon - this week will be Florida!
We watched church online this morning and this afternoon it came a torrential rainfall!!!
I stood on the front porch and admired the scent, sound, and sight of RAIN!!!
I could feel all of nature relax a little as the water soaked into the ground, grass and flower beds.
More is in the forecast over the next few days and it will be so welcome!
It's late Sunday afternoon as I write....
and we are about to head over to the Bells for a Sunday night family dinner.
Amber's going to cook up the rest of the red snapper they caught down in Gulf Shores and I'm taking some pepper poppers and Louis Dean will get to meet the new grand dogs for the first time!
It's going to be a fun evening and I will journal all about it tomorrow!
