MOMS Club weekend

I joined MOMS Club a little over a year ago and last fall when Cora stopped taking a morning nap I really found myself enjoying getting more involved. Basically MOMS Club is a support group, of sorts, for stay at home moms. Each local chapter has a president and other board members, all volunteers, and once a month all members are invited to a business meeting where matters of business are taken care of and a monthly calendar of activities is planned. Our chapter plans 3-4 activities a week, from park days to visits to the fire department. We also have age-related play groups that meet once a week and moms-night-out once a month. To me MOMS club has been a good way to meet other moms who stay at home with their kids, give Cora an opportunity to play with a variety of kids and a way to make sure I get out of the house and have social interaction, too. I don't have an excuse to go stir-crazy, be lonely, feel isolated, or just get bored. Also, MOMS club activities are almost always free. Being a SAHM (Stay at home mom) with a very tight budget makes it difficult to do what my working friends often want to do: shop $$ and go out for lunch $$$. I love to hang out with my working friends, but since they work this has been a good way to be able to have other women to hang out with on other days of the week. If you are a SAHM and need: friends, a reason/way to get out of the house, advice from other moms about anything find a MOMS club chapter in your area, or start one! Also each MOMS club chapter adopts a few service projects in order to give back to our communities. Each year the GJ chapter walks in the Relay for Life and puts on a Christmas party with gifts, Santa, food and games for the children in foster care in the area, among other activies.

This weekend I was able to go to a regional luncheon in Albuquerque, NM, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the beginning of MOMS club. 12 of us from Gj drove down together. We had done some fundraising so everything was paid for which was fabulous. We were pampered with great food and a lovely hotel with lots of amenities. The luncheon was a celebration of MOMS club and the 110,000 moms that have been involved in the last 25 years. It was an affirmation of our choices to be SAHMs as the most important way to impact and give back to our communities. It was an affirmation of the ways moms support each other so that we can continue to stay at home and be the best moms we can be. I'm so thankful I was able to go. Brad was home with Cora and also had some of the ladies from church watch her over the course of the weekend, so it was a joint effort to replace me. :) I'm kidding. This was the first time that I left Brad and Cora for more than a few hours. I missed them like crazy but also had so much fun hanging out with 11 other ladies road-tripping together (with no kids)! I knew that everything would go fine for Brad and Cora while I was gone and it did. What a blessing that was to me!
Here's a picture of me with a few of the other girls after the luncheon. I had to borrow a friend's dress because I've given away or consigned all of my fancier dresses! I figured I never had a reason to wear them so why keep them! The two bridesmaid dresses I still have I don't think would have fit my prego tummy. (See the top picture - I'm twenty weeks along...half-way.) Just having some girly fun!