Our shopping experience

Yesterday's shopping trip went very well. The three girls (we have an extra daughter for a week and a half) were delightful and fun. Darcy and Sarina were patient and helpful. Madison was open to ideas and trying on everything. She wanted me to take pictures of her so she could see herself. Not sure why this was better than the mirror, but we did it.

This pink dress we bought for the outdoor 8th grade graduation ceremony. Madison's 6th grade class has to make presentations on stage so she needed something nice. Unfortunately she told me that they aren't allowed sleeveless dresses. What? We live in Florida and sun dresses are sleeveless! We bought a pink sparkly scarf to wear around her shoulders if the higher ups don't like this dress.

This dress almost made the cut before the pink dress above. She tried on this dress first and we all liked it. It is a little more dressy than the other one, but the colors were nice on her. Browns are definitely a good color with her hair. I would have bought them both, but she out grows clothes so quickly I wasn't sure all of them would get much wear.

This was our fourth store. We hit three other stores before reaching the mall. We found our cocktail dress at the third store, but Madison wanted to make sure she didn't find something she liked better. I told her we could always take the dress back if she found something better. Thus she tried on more at JC Penney's.

We liked this purple dress too, but it wasn't better than the dress we had purchased at Kohl's (sorry Susan, know you don't like that word). We really did find a nice selection of dresses at these stores and the prices weren't bad.

Darcy and Sarina would take a shopping basket and would wheel it around the store throwing dresses in it for Madison to try on. She gamely tried all of them. By the time we got to this store the two girls and I were pooped, but luckily this was a huge dressing room with a big bench for us to park our rears while she strutted in front of us.


This dress was the last dress she tried on. By this time we were done with dress shopping and had moved on to finding her some shorts for summer. The pairs we had were too small so we sent Darcy out to get bigger sizes. Darcy returned with the shorts and this dress which she liked. Again, Madison gamely tried it on. We liked it, but she is so pale that the white sort of washed her out. Still not better than the dress we bought at the third store.

We started the day at our local outdoor mall. The first store she tried on several outfits, but they were all way too big. She needs junior XS and that is very hard to find. Even the 0's and 1's were too big at this store. We left and headed toward the mall, but we got sidetracked by Applebees where we went in and had some lunch.

The second store was outside of Applebees so we looked in it too, but it was an outlet and there wasn't anything in there. We hit the road and stopped at Kohl's where we ended up spending quite a huge amount of time picking and trying on clothes. While Madison and I were in the dressing room trying on the clothes the other two had chosen, Darcy got bored and decided to help herself to some of the same outfits she had chosen for Madison.

She would meet us as we came out of the dressing area and she was definitely better about strutting herself up and down the runway. Sarina too tried to show Madison how to model her clothes, but Madison stuck to her guns and ignored the two of them.

This dress to the left was actually in the kid's department at Kohl's. We found these after spending an hour in the junior department. I thought this dress was a tad too young for Madison, and after seeing Darcy in it she agreed and went with......



this dress. This is the one that she will wear on Saturday night at the country club for the 8th grade graduation party. Sarina is standing behind her holding up her hair in the style we thought should go with the dress. She will wear one of my necklaces (the one I wore on my wedding day) and some fake diamond studs in her ears.

Only problem.....she needs shoes. And she is a ladies size 9 so all the shoes we found had huge skinny heels that made her look like she was playing dress up in Cinderella's shoes. She may just end up with the shoes in this picture because I'm not sure I can stand to do this all over again.

When we got home she put on the dress and necklace and came outside to show her father. He was cleaning the pool. He took one look at her, standing before him in her finery smiling, and he said, "You shouldn't be out here by the pool in that outfit."

I understood. I've had more time to get used to this. He will need even more time.