Grocery Shopping

I get this a lot: “I don’t know how you do it.  How do you go shopping with all those kids?”  This is how.  I found the most kid friendly grocery store near our house. It just opened a few months ago and it is extremely child accommodating.   Now it’s a piece of cake to go to the grocery store. 

David likes to ride in the cart.  He doesn’t like to walk.  Now it’s even better because he can pretend to drive a car while we shop.  Elizabeth is just content to go along for the ride as long as she can see everything that is going on.  She has the best seat in the house.

The older kids think it’s pretty cool to have their own grocery cart.  It’s really helpful for them to have their own carts since we usually get a TON of groceries at once.  I think these little carts are bottomless.  By the time we were done shopping all the carts were almost overflowing.

The kids really enjoy going to the grocery store now.  It’s kind of funny we look like a family of ducks crossing the street when we are there.  They all follow behind me in a straight line so they don’t get in anyone else’s way, although they do tend to stray every now and then too.

Getting Thrifty

You know that saying, "One person's junk, is another person's treasure?" I wonder who's going to treasure this stuff.

I got together with my friend Kellee the other day and we perused all the local thrift shops. While we found some really great deals and bargains, I have to say this was one of our favorites. Can you believe this bottle of conditioner costs just 25 cents? There might even be 1/4 of it left in the bottle too! What a steal!

I actually did find some great deals. They were pretty random things, but stuff we use all the time. Remember when I burnt the toast and filled our house with smoke? I ended up throwing out our toaster. It was too small anyway. It could only toast two pieces at a time. I found this toaster oven that is able to toast four pieces of bread at a time and Kellee pointed out that it's a convection oven too! $6. Can't beat that. Oh and I used to have that mini chopper and I lost it somehow. Probably from moving so many times it got lost or shuffled around. That was only $4.

Melamine dishes for the kids. Aren't they cute? Yep, those are potato chips on the bowls. It should go really well with their cereal in the morning.

Here are a few things I found for Rachel. Her birthday is Monday. They are really into giving each other mail right now. They draw pictures or write stories and leave mail in each other's rooms. Pretty fun! And what little girl doesn't like wooden magnet dolls.

Add a few sewing patterns and some curtain rods and my total was just $26. Not bad for a day's work. Spending the day with Kellee and finding an almost empty container of conditioner: Priceless.

Disaster with the Easter Bunny....almost

Yesterday when the sun came out, after the huge snowstorm that we didn't get, I decided it was time to get out and get some grocery shopping done. As I am pulling into the parking lot my kids notice an Easter bunny. This of course is right next door at some check cashing place. One of them said, "Look! It's an Easter bunny."

I, knowing that my children are terrified of adults dressed in costumes like this, (we can no longer go to Casa Bonita, Chuck E Cheese, or Red Robin), said,"Oh, cool! Should we go see him?"

"No, no, no!" They all chimed together. Fine. They're no fun.

I unload the car. We are walking toward the entrance to Safeway and at the same time I see this woman. She is running frantically toward us like there is a fire coming out of the building. She starts to yell. "Excuse me, excuse me! We are doing free pictures with the Easter Bunny. Would you like to bring your kids over?" My kids are still bolting for the entrance thinking that this bunny was going to come running over.

I said, "I don't think so. My children don't really like that Easter bunny, but thank you anyway." Whew. We made it into Safeway without a confrontation with the bunny.

Most of the time my kids are pretty good at the grocery store. This was no exception. However, every once in awhile one of them likes to touch or stray. That's when I said, "Do you want to go see the Easter bunny? I will take you over there if you don't put that back."

"No, no!" And the item was promptly returned to its place. It worked pretty well. Then came time to check out and leave. That all went smoothly. Not a problem.

As we are leaving, a new lady tried to yell at us. She must no have been in the running mood. She just yelled at the top of her lungs, "Hey! We're taking free photos with the Easter bunny. You should bring your kids over." My kids started running for the car.

I yelled back, "No, thank you!"

We get home and as I am unloading the groceries I notice a package of tuna. How did that happen? I am usually pretty good at catching these little guys before it reaches the check out counter. I hate tuna. At least if they were going to sneak something in the cart it could have been a Snickers or something. That leads me to believe that it was David who did this. The other kids definitely would have known to put something better in the cart. That was our adventure at the grocery store for the week. So much fun.