Glimpse into a pretty typical Saturday

What a day I had today! The kids and I were out of the door by 8:15 ... we had a coupon for Buy One Get One for Jamba Juice and the same for Noah's bagels (right next door to each other). It was so fun to give them a special treat! They have so much joy and it must be contagious because a very nice lady who met us in Jamba Juice and then again at Noah's bagels handed me two cookies that she bought for the kids because she just thought they were so adorable and sweet. Aaah!! How nice is that?!

We headed over to the "Pantry", where a group of Christians hands out recently expired food from local grocery stores, and waited in line until it was our turn for food. I had just "weaned" them off of needing to watch a movie while mommy goes into the kitchen to get the food ... now it has moved from being a time of me socializing w/ friends to being a time of me spending quality time w/ them ... I read them 3 books while we waited and then sent them (along w/ my phone for distraction) to the stairs to wait. On our way home we stopped at Trader Joes (the small one, as Ellie calls it) tried the sample, got a few items and found the "panther" hiding in the store. Always an adventure w/ my kids!

Home. An our later we were out the door again on a bike ride to the library. It's a little over a mile to the bike path and then another 1.2 miles to the library from there. It took me twice as long this time! I felt like I was pulling an elephant ... it wasn't until I was on my way back that I finally took a look at the tires on the trailer ... yep, it wasn't on right and had been "rubbing" on the trailer the whole time. Yikes ...

After dinner the kids and I watched "Homeward Bound". I'm such a sap ... cried at the end ... and now I'm waiting for Chris to come home so we can watch a free movie together. Yes, free! Blockbuster is doing this cool thing right now where all the movies that are not new releases are FREE for the month of June! He took back the kids movie and got the Soloist for us to watch ... looking forward to having some Madelaine's and Rooibos tea while watching a movie w/ my hus!

homemade refried beans

I made crockpot burritos tonight ... but before I could make them I needed to make refried beans - so at 7 this morning I rinsed my beans, boiled them and then turned off and let them soak for 4 hours. At 11am I rinsed them and set them back on the stove to boil for about an hour. Around 3 this afternoon, using the recipe my mom gave to me from a good friend of hers, I finely chopped strips of corn tortilla, chopped some onion and 2 garlic cloves and sauteed them until soft in some olive oil on the stove ...

added the beans w/ some of the reserved water from the beans, mashed them and then added a lot of salt until they no longer tasted bland and still I could have added a little more!

When I was finished I had enough to put in my crockpot burritos (which were cooked for 2 hours on high each wrapped in foil (note to self: tortillas are soggy when cooked this way ... must put in oven and/or broiler for a few minutes before serving). They were very tasty - kids LOVED them! I ALSO had enough to put aside for lunch tomorrow or Sunday AND I froze some too!