So this is a bad thing?

Monday we had Emmett's 1st birthday party. It was a really great time but I won't go into party details this time. I've been thinking a lot about a comment made to me by a good friend of mine. I don't know if she reads this of not, so if you do (and you'll know who you are when you see what was said) I'm not saying anything negative about you. You know I love ya.

For the party, I made Emmett's cake (and decorated it myself) and then cupcakes for the guests. I also pre-scooped ice cream into little cups so I wouldn't have to dish it out during the party. My friend saw this and said, "You are such a stay at home mom." Hmmm...I wasn't sure how to take this. Her and I have been friends for about 16 years now so I know her very well and I didn't take that as an insult....per say...but I wasn't sure how to feel about it.

Yes, I'm a stay at home mom, but I also have an Avon business and I'll be starting back up at the Pepsi Center in a few weeks. I make the time to do the things I do because I feel it's important....and also because I'm cheap (ahem, I mean frugal...naw, I'm cheap). I made the invitations myself because I didn't want to pay the money to have them done professionally. I made the cupcakes out of a box mix and canned frosting (sorry to spoil it all for you...but for the record everyone liked them) and the ice cream was store brand scooped into those cups because A) I didn't want to pay for the premade cups and B) I didn't want to stand and dish out ice cream during the party (as I mentioned already). Is it wierd that I did all those things? Does it make me lame? Is doing those things, and being a stay at home mom, a bad thing?

I do things like this to help my family save some money. Sure it's more convienant to buy cupcakes (or a big cake), or buy ice cream in little cups and I'm certainly not saying there is ANYthing wrong to doing that. I'm not trying to put down anyone that does. I've become such a bargain shopper that I can't imagine doing it any other way. How I shop is not for everyone and some people may not worry about being as frugal (cheap) as I am. Some times I feel like my frugality is a bit of a crutch...but that's a story for another time.
Anyway, a lot of the things I used at the party were things I already had on hand. I didn't have to buy that much for the party, really. Because of how I shop, I had a lot of those things in my stock pile so it served 2 purposes...I saved money because I was using things I had previously bought inexpensively and I also got some thing out of my cupboards that needed to get used up.

I don't know why I feel the need to justify how I did the party. I know that my friend wasn't trying to say anything negative about me. I guess I just got a little defensive about it. It's not like I sit around and have nothing better to do than scoop ice cream and bake cupcakes because I'm a stay at home mom. I MAKE time to do those things because I want to. I did have other things I could have been doing but I felt (and always feel) that, as the grocery shopper in our house, it's my job to help us save a little money when doing that shopping. If that means that I sit up until 11pm the night before the party scooping ice cream and decorating a cake then that's what I need to do. Plus it was fun! And even though the cake didn't look as pretty as some people's cakes, it was made by me.
Would I have liked to have nicer decorations, cupcakes from Lovely Confections, an inflatable bouncy house?..sure! But we did fine with what we had and people seemed to have a nice day. I would like to think that no matter how busy I am I will make time to save my family a little money and put that little extra personal touch into my childrens' birthday parties. Talk to me again in a few years and we'll see if I stayed true to this statement. ;)