Mothers Day

I always feel kind of weird about Mothers day. On the one hand, who doesn't love macaroni necklaces and handmade cards? On the other hand, I didn't become a mother to get thanks- I had my children and care for my children because I love them. My payoff is happiness AND frustration, in equal measure. I know that I am a devoted mother, but I also no that I'm not very good at a lot of things, from cleaning to being patient, so I feel strange during mothers day talks. Today for example, Mark spoke in church. During Mark's glowing tribute to his mother, Daniel flung himself off the pew multiple times, knocked down the hymnbook rack twice, tried to stab the girls in front of us with a pen three times, took off his shoes, pulled off my earrings and sang his ABCs at full volume. We ended up in the church kitchen, listening to Marks talk over the intercom. Afterwards as I tried to exit the church with my six children and boxful of mothers day "gifts", I was blocked by all the youth giving out flowers that I will kill within the week. I felt a little sad, a little amused, but mostly tired- what I really wanted was a nap. At home, I got the nap, plus more homemade gifts, plus dinner made by Mark and the girls, and now I am full and rested but have a trashed kitchen to work on. I LOVE being a mother a lot of the time, hate it sometimes (mostly when there is vomiting involved), but mostly I am just doing my best. Happy Mothers day to all the moms in the trenches.

Dance Class

Megan, Abby and Rachel took Ballet, Tap and Hip Hop dance at the college this winter. Meg had to drop out because of her broken leg. Last week the rest of us (except for daniel) showed up to watch their last class.

Kelly got a little bored.

She hung her webkinz from the dance bar.

Julia and Megan got tired.

Rachel and abby dancing.

Aldi

I stress out about grocery shopping for four reasons.

1. I am supposed to choose foods that help me lose weight (a lifelong battle) and be healthy.

2. I am supposed to have a huge food storage for emergencies.

3. I am supposed to buy food my family enjoys and will eat.

4. I am supposed to spend the least amount of money possible doing all of the above.

My solution to all of the above is Aldi (no, they are not paying me for this). Aldi is a mostly all generic (store brand) grocery store. They have most of the same things you find in a regular store, just one brand of each thing. One brand of ketchup, one brand of mayo, one brand of peanut butter, etc. The food for the most part, tastes just like the name brand stuff.

The store is set up like a small warehouse, with food stacked on pallets instead of shelves. This is great for food storage, since you can buy whole cases of stuff at a time, but unlike stores like BJs, you don't have to. You are welcome to take just one item from the case. They also have dairy, frozen stuff, some meat, some produce, a few kinds of bread, but no extra departments- no deli, no bakery, no flower shop, etc. There are usually only one or two people working. You bag your own groceries, and you must buy or provide the bags. (they cost 5 or 10cents each). You also have to pay a quarter to get a cart, and you have to return your own cart to get the quarter back.

I love Aldis mostly for the prices, which are super low- $1.69 for cereal, $2.50 for milk. I also love the simplicity of shopping in a store where I don't have to compare brands to find the best price- its all the best price. I dislike Aldi because waiting in line for one checker and then bagging all my own stuff takes a long time. Add the 25 minutes it takes me to get there (each way) and an Aldi shopping trip becomes a half day project. Also, since Aldi stores are usually in low inclome areas (mine is in Edgewood), I have the guilt of pushing my overflowing cart next to elderly shoppers trying to make $20 stretch as far as possible. (I always let them check out ahead of me)

I like almost all the food there, but one of my favorite things is their fit and active brand- low fat popcorn, light yogurt and fruit, protein bars, and my new favorite- whole wheat pasta. I LOVE their frozen fudge bars. The bread and produce are just Ok. I wish they had more flavors of yogurt. But in general, I love Aldi.

Julias Birthday

I had a great plan for Julia's birthday- a Hawaiian Luau! We had plastic coconuts for goody bags. We were going to eat pizza with pineapple on it and drink Hawaiian punch from cups with little umbrellas in it. We were going to wear leis and put flowers in the girls hair and dance the limbo. We were going to have a hula hoop contest and watch "beach party at Disney world" (there's Hula Dancing in it).



Then on Wednesday, three days before the party, I woke up sick as a dog- fever, chills, stomach cramps, nausea. I slept all days (while Daniel watched too much TV), only dragging myself out of bed at 4pm to drive a group of youth to the temple for baptisms. The next morning, Mark, who had also been at the temple, felt awful and stayed home. I knew I should cancel the party, but Julia had been a little free with the invites at school and I wasn't sure who was coming! So I went ahead and decorated, got the cake, got the balloons, got lots of hand sanitizer and Lysol and scrubbed down the house...



Saturday morning, Julia went out to Dennys with Karen. Came back and within five minutes, threw up all over the couch. So- party canceled after all. I had to use a combination of the school directory, our caller ID and some embarrassing mistakes, but I managed to reach most of the kids Julia had invited.



Then I had to scramble- how do we salvage a ruined seventh birthday? We came up with some at home ideas:

1. Silly string fight, water balloon fight.

2. Herbie the love bug marathon.

3. Nap with mom (Juli still thinks this is a privilege)

4. A new Webkinz (we only have a zillion of these)

4. Cake and Ice Cream for dinner (not the big cake- we froze that)



All in all, not such a horrible birthday. We hope to reschedule the Luau once we all get over this horrible bug. And Julia, despite throwing up, was pretty happy.