Welcome back school week

This weekend was busy but SO much fun. We decided to go to Goodwill on Friday with about $30 and no real idea of what we wanted. We were just going to window shop unless something called out to us. I have to add, though, we do have a long list of things we have been looking for but just don't want to pay a ton of money for each item! So when we walked out of Goodwill about an hour later, we were ecstatic! We found a large bread machine for only $10. It works very well too! Can't wait to make breads again. We also found an electric wok for $3. It, too, works awesome. Made chicken fried rice on Friday night to test it out. Gonna start looking for more Chinese recipes!! :) We got a crock pot for $5 but we haven't tried it out yet. Plan on that probably either later this week or early next week. We got 2 small "gaming" chairs for the kids to sit in instead of just sitting on the floor. Then we just picked up some misc coloring books for the kids to do in the car.
On Saturday, we got up early and headed down to Parsons. The kids could barely contain their excitement to see their brother again. We went to the park after checking the time for the movie we wanted to see. There was a farmer's market going across the street and so I went to peruse. I found some jams & jellies. We are a SUCKER for homemade jams and jellies. We got Mango Jam, Cinnamon Peach Jam, and Black Cherry Jelly. We have tried the cinnamon peach and it is really good. The cinnamon isn't over powering but you can still taste it. Great stuff. After a few hours of play time, and then lunch, we headed over to the theater to watch Toy Story 3 in 3D. It is, by far, our FAVORITE of the series. It was very well done. It was just hard to swallow the cost of $40 for 5 tickets. After the movie, we headed back to the park to let the kids run off some energy and talk about what else we might want to do. Unfortunately, we have a pre-teen who wants to do nothing but sit in front of a TV. So, Jeremy and I are going to start hunting down things to do each time and just let him tag along with us. We know that he will enjoy it, even if he says nothing to us. One tough nut to crack, I tell ya. Poor kids are having a tough time not understanding why he won't play and chase them like he used to. But everyone had a great time anyway. While at the theater, Jeremy had won 2 bracelets in "The Claw" machine (which we thought was appropriate when going to see a Toy Story movie!) and Bullfrog lost his along the way home. He was SO devastated that we stopped at Walgreen's and bought him a $1 stuffed cow. He named it Jack Link (middle name is courteous of Jeremy). He was SO happy.

Sunday we got the kitchen cleaned up and went to church. Then we made a bread loaf to see how well the bread machine worked. :) I LOVE it. Getting the kids back to bed on time was a chore though since they were still really wound up with everything going on and everything coming up. The kids have 4 days of school this week and then another 4 days next week.