Mother-Daughter Shopping

I'm taking a short break from my Tetris game to write this. 

Petticoat Junction, anyone?

This week my Kindergarten Girl, N-Belle had a couple of days off school so her teacher could help with the event formerly known as Kindergarten Round-Up.  [I think they changed the name to avoid hot branding irons and fancy rope tricks.]
Anyway. In celebration of a free day, I promised her a girly shopping trip. There was no better time,  I realized during Sunday Get-Ready-For-Church-No-You-Cannot-Wear-That-Hold-Still-While-I-Comb-Your-Hair-I-Told-You-What-Shoes-To-Wear-Well-I-Didn't-Wear-Them-Where-Did-You-Take-Them-Off-Did-You-Wash-Your-Face-No-Babies-Don't-Go-To-Church-Well-Of-Course-She-Does-Because-She's-Your-Sister-Not-A-Doll-I-Told-You-Not-That-Dress-Because-I'm-Your-Mother Morning that she has very few long enough or unstained enough garments left.  The girl is leggier than a six year old should be and very - how shall I say this  - Clumsy.  She has older brothers too, so that means that she has to be just a bit of a tomboy sometimes.

My daughter is the one in the tree. Her cousins stayed demurely on the ground. Maybe the tree climbing could explain the state of her wardrobe.

 

So we went shopping, the four of us: Daughters aged 6.5, 3-going-on-12, and Just-One-Year, + Me the Mom.

If you've never experienced little girls trying on spring dresses in a fitting room your life is missing something.  I'm sorry, but it just is.  Each twirly skirt brought exclamations of sheer delight and an over-abundance of fond gazes into the over-abundance of mirrors (where did they learn the tuck-your-chin-lift-your-brows look?).  Each and every item was a perfect fit even if it wasn't.  Matchy-Matching with each other was an absolute must.  Little GBaby contentedly sat amidst discarded ruffles and flounces and occasionally gave an imitating squeal while her sisters preened and changed.  Eventually I had to take an armful of "don't quite fit" to the salesperson because if I left them in the little closet of a room with the girls they would have talked me into each and every item.

I loved the first store.

At the second store, the wandering 3 year old and her constant conversations with the headless mannequins began to wear my patience as thin as the Easter cardigans. Still, the trying-on-clothes antics made me smile.

By the time we reached the third store I skipped the fitting rooms and just stood my daughter by the racks of pastel garments and held one or two up against her.  It was past lunch time and we were all hungry.

WBean wanted to eat in Target (say what?) but since it was N-Belle's day off she got to choose the restaurant.  She picked "that Waffle place."  You know, because I'd only made them pancakes from scratch for breakfast.  Oh well. That Waffle place has pretty good coffee. 

After our late lunch, we were nearly out of time.  We hit up a discount grocery store (not nearly as much fun as our other stops) and headed home with our purchases.  Woo-hoo. Three clothing stores in one day.  Alone, that's not much of an accomplishment; accompanied by small children, it is satisfactory. 

Here's the funny thing about our procurements: I knowingly bought a dress two sizes too small for my be-legged one, because we she so desperately wanted to match her little sisters.

Don't ask me about WBean's pose here... I'm just not sure about that girl sometimes.

I unknowingly bought a dress too large for GBaby. But I think that is going to be normal procedure until she decides to grow.

She either didn't like looking like a jail bird standing in a line up, or the fact that her dress could do without the bottom two stripes.  Something was upsetting poor little GBaby.  She got over it.

Happy Excuse-to-Dress-Up Day!

I don't do Halloween.  Neither my husband nor I grew up celebrating Halloween, so it's just not a big deal to us.  Honestly, not much really appeals to me about the witchy festivities, and I really dislike all the ghoulish decorations.  I'm not being a hater here; if you love Halloween and want to throw your energy into making it a big day, go for it. It is just not for me.

Except.

Who doesn't love candy?  I mean, besides dentists and my Sammy?

And.

Pumpkins are so cheerful (and, uncarved, they make great decorations right up till Thanksgiving).

And.

I love love love playing dress up.  Yep, I'm a grown-up mom lady person and I still play dress up.  Only my kids don't know it yet.  They must think everyone dons a polka-dot dress and vibrant red lipstick to perform domestic chores.

I happen to have a lot of candy and pumpkins around, but one can never have too many dress-up clothes.  The happy, cute, creative costumes and the chance to show off my happy, cute, creative children are the only reasons that make me wish we did Halloween. Especially when I see something like this lovely little concoction from one of my favorite blogging crafters.  What kind of dress-up loving mama would I be to deny my lovely little girls something like that?

When I saw The Cottage Home's duds, I started thinking through my stash of fabric, creating a similar ensemble in my mind... Let's see, I have shiny red satin, sheer sparkly organza, happy striped and dotted ribbon, and absolutely zero extra time.  Bummer.  Because my girls need some new dress-up stuff.  Really.  What they have only fills a small laundry basket and it is all Disney Princess garb (which I hate and they love.)

The next day a friend and I hit Old Navy for a massive sale they were having (a situation that deserves an entire post of it's own: 2 mommas + 2 nursing infants + 2 two-year-olds = absolutely hysterical chaos!) and I saw a rack of costumes marked down to $5.00.  Plus, I had a "40% OFF" coupon.  So, instead of the original price of $29.94 I paid a whopping $3.00 for each outfit!  That's less than a happy meal, folks - and guaranteed to last a lot longer! 

 Is the construction of the garments solid? No, I've had to repair the queen bee dress twice already.  Does anyone care? No!  It was $3.00 people!

We are very happy on this last day of October, (despite the rush-to-school yelling) and we hope you all are too.

Boys dress up too! My sons had outfits (homemade, so take that!) for the school costume parade on Friday. Weston was a Christmas clown (say what?) and Sammy was a laptop computer (because his dad thought it would be cool).  But OF COURSE, I did not get any pictures snapped. Maybe I'll make encourage them to become their clowny computery selves again today.  We could hit up Great Grandma's house during the town's trick-or-treat hours.  She always has lots of candy around.