Shopping with 3 different opinions

After this past week, I realize how awful of a child I probably was, and am very sympathetic to my mother for putting up with me. I realize this because my children are JUST like me.
In the last week we have spent countless hours shopping. Everything I liked, they didn't. Everything they wanted was too short, too tight fitting, too teenage looking, and too PINK!
It took me back to the days when I begged my mom for daisy dukes, thongs, and halter tops!

We started our shopping trip Saturday up at the North GA Premium Outlets. This was personally my first time at these outlets. I was quite impressed! We hit some great sales, and enjoyed browsing! Best sale of all was Carter's and OshGosh. While I love their sales in my stores, up there was just as good, but better!! We hit some sale racks where everything was $1.99, $5.99 and under.. then you got 20% off of EVERYTHING, including sale prices! Luckily Aaliyah is only a size 6, so I can still shop there for her! She racked up and got some super cute clothing. Of course even though we were shopping for big girls, I had to snatch up some great deals for the babies too! They came out with a few onesies a piece, and new pj's!

Abigail is by far the most difficult to shop for. She is very thick. Her height/weight has not equaled out yet. So she has to try on everything. The entire shopping trip she was not worried about buying any clothes. All she wanted to buy was, bras. OMG. Talk about driving me crazy! She is only 7, but she does have a little "sumthin sumthin"sticking out, if you know what I mean! She has some of the halter/sports bras, but she was convinced she was buying the real deal. Well she got a rude awakening when I said no to triangle bras. She found some cute ones at Justice, but they were $15.90 for 2! After I explained that she was 7 years old and did not those, I convinced her to wait and get them from Walmart. That seemed to calm the water, a little. The other issue with Abigail is so far she had 4 PINK tops. I told her NO more pink! She had to find some different colors. That part was not so easy. Everything cute, was pink. But I refuse to have my child wearing pink EVERY day! She wanted the plaid skirts, lace tops, red and black checkered pants. The whole time I am thinking, when did my child turn emo?? Am I raising a punk rocker? That was until I took her to stores with the Apple bottom jeans, Enyce, Mecca, and other "hip hop" styles, as Abigail would call them. Then she was right at home, and Mama was a little bit more at ease with her style choices!

SHOES were not so much fun. Both the girls had 2 pair of sketchers last year, so I said NO to sketchers. I wanted them to have a nice pair of Nike tennis shoes. Well that got the storm going again. Trying to explain that to a 7 yr old and a 5 yr old was very interesting. While I thought it would have been easier just to give in and let them get sketchers (after all they are cheaper!) I knew I had to stick to my word, to prove my point. (I sometimes fall short of always sticking to my word when it comes to NO's)
So we went to Nike, Adidas, and Puma.. everything I liked for them, and they agreed to, didn't have their sizes. So frustrating!! After an endless search, we decided to head back to our side of town and hit up Discover Mills. (Abby's favorite mall) But not before of course, it started pouring rain!

Discover Mills wasn't much help either. After going through EVERY shoe store in there, still left empty handed. (besides the couple outfits we got Abby). Still no shoes.

Sunday I was too exhausted to try and go shopping, AGAIN. But I did hit up Walmart, ALONE. For the basic essentials. Socks, panties, BRAS, and hair stuff. It is so much easier shopping ALONE. Abby was very happy with her 'bras'. Thank God.

Today I got everyone ready to head out shopping, AGAIN. I was expecting to be gone the whole day, and took two Advil in advance. I was prepared for "NO mom I don't like those, I hate that, that's ugly, Ewww... OMG Mom". Well much to my surprise. It wasn't bad at all. They were actually somewhat cooperative and didn't complain much about Mommy's style choices!
I got a coupon from the Sunday paper for Shoe Carnival. Plus they were having a BOGO sale! Abigail ended up getting the Nike's she originally wanted, (whew!) And I talked Aaliyah into getting a super cute pair of Puma's! Even though they were BOGO and I had a coupon, they ended up still being a little more expensive than I had wanted them to be, but I was relieved to have finally found shoes I didn't care how much they were!!

We were in the shopping center off 124, with Target, Marshall's and TJMaxx. So while I had the babies already in stroller, we decided to browse around! Thank goodness we did! We ended up finding Abigail 4 more tops and another pair of shorts! I then declared we were FINISHED shopping.

After we got home, I put together all their outfits and shoes from recent shopping trips and things we had picked up in the last few months. Both girls ended up with 9 outfits a piece, and 5 extra misc. shirts a piece, 2 dresses tennis shoes, high top sneakers, two pair of sandals each, a pack a socks each, new panties, Abby's bras, new hair bows, new combs, new book bags each, and a million different school supplies! All in all, I think they did pretty dang good!! And didn't quite break Mom and Dad's wallets! Close to it though.

Now the biggest issue is, where am I going to put all this new stuff?? I just made room and got the old stuff organized. My girls need an extra room just for clothes and shoes!!
But I know I sure am glad I am done shopping! At least for a few months, once the weather cools down, I will be at it again =o)

I can't believe in 7 days my babies will both be in school, and I will be working again =o(
Where did the summer go??