Ahhhhh…..Wal Mart. I have a love hate/hate relationship with WM. On one hand, I love a stocked pantry. It pleases me to open my cabinets and see all manner of boxed, canned, packaged food, neatly arranged in rows and bins. In theory, I could whip up a relatively healthy dinner, a batch of muffins, and packed lunches until the end of time, without having to brave the grocery store with Malory.
BUT….having a stocked pantry means going to a place I avoid as much as possible. When it comes to pantry staples like rice, pasta, chips, and canned goods, there’s no cheaper place than Wal Mart. Unfortunately, the Wal Mart nearest my house is also a haven for every homeless, pajama-wearing, inbred person in northern Colorado. I could walk around and take pictures of the clientele and it would leave you speechless.
Anyway, the beginning of February was pantry stocking time. In order to really get it good and packed full, I make trips to WM, King Soopers, AND Costco. At the end, my cupboards are full, my extra freezer(s) are jam packed, and my basement storage room could shelter us during a zombie apocalypse. It’s exhausting….for both me and my checkbook.
But, you know who loves it? This BIG eater. This was her Grand Slam breakfast one regular weekday morning. Two pancakes, two links of sausage, and two “yolk eggs” (sunny side up). She ate it all. She’s also known to order all the food at her favorite restaurant…Old McDonalds. Her meal of choice is a cheeseburger happy meal AND a side order of 6 chicken nuggets. It takes a lot of food to fuel this little ball of fire!
In other news, I am still sporting this fantastic footwear. For the next 3 weeks, I am allowed to wean myself off slowly, starting with 2 hours a day in “regular” shoes, aka tennis shoes with orthotic inserts. Hey, I’ll take it. Those are currently the best 2 hours of my day. I have been lucky and blessed to never have had a debilitating injury, and I am grateful for that. It’s a game changer in terms of doing anything with ease and/or speed. Not to mention, dangerous. Because my boot is on my right foot, driving is challenging. I can’t flex or extend my foot, so in order to press on the gas I have to scoot the seat up as far as it will go, which is no small feat for this 5’10” lady. We are either speeding ahead at 50mph or completely still. My kids love it.
It is February though, and time for a romantic pre-Valentines date night with this guy. So, what did we do? Went country dancing of course. With my boot. And after about the 30th time I stepped on John’s toes, we decided to forego any further dancing and do what we do best….have cocktails. Followed by cupcakes…
But, let’s not kid ourselves, the main event this month if you’re under the age of 12 is Valentine’s Day. This was Malory’s first year to have a party at school and she was excited to be given the appropriate avenue to bestow her love upon her boyfriends…by giving them a Valentine that says something about punching someone. Preschool love is so pure.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of either Reese’s or Jackson’s Valentine’s this year, because Jackson’s were so labor intensive that I was in a frenzy right up until I delivered him and his craft to the classroom. Seriously, they required red solo cups, hot glue, clear balloons, one million gumballs, and every member of our family to complete. They were really cute, but whew!!
John was out of town for V-Day, so the kiddos and I had our very own “celebration.” And what better way to celebrate anything really, than with CHEESE FONDUE?! (I should do a search to see how many times I’ve mentioned cheese fondue on the blog).
First, we unloaded our loot from school….
And then, we jumped right into the best food ever invented. Now, because I ragged on Wal Mart earlier in this post, I will say something redeeming about them. They are the only grocer I know that carries the most convenient product in the whole world. A packaged fondue pot, with a candle and plastic tray, that goes directly into the microwave for 5 minutes and Voila!!! The best part though, is when you are finished, the whole thing goes into the garbage. Before I discovered this genius product, I would buy the packages of fondue in the box and heat it up in a saucepan. It would literally take me 2 days of scrubbing and 3 sponges to get that clean….the cheese is that sticky. Which kind of makes you wonder if it’s sticking to the insides of my body like that. Let’s not think about it….
Next up….President’s Day weekend brought us some beautiful spring weather AND a bonus day off from school, so we hit up the City Park playground. We brought along stale bread to feed the ducks and Malory was THRILLED!! (Side note: it was literally days later that I saw the Facebook post about not feeding bread to ducks. Sorry ducks)
Anyway, you can’t see it very well in these professional-quality pictures from my phone, but what has Malory so excited in the first picture (see her jumping?) is the duck in second picture with the fancy hair-do. We all laughed so hard. He was like the Elton John of the duck pond…marching to the beat of his own drum.
These cuties and I had a great day. They’re getting so grown up…sniff, sniff😢
And, just because….look at these two. Have you ever seen two dogs that love each other more?💞
