$5 Fleece......

One of my most favorite times of the year to shop is around the holidays, when there are tons of sales, AND when my children HISTORICALLY all seem to have simultaneous growth spurts. It is then that I am happy to exercise my bargain hunting skills and stock up on winter clothes that will hopefully last the next three months before the next afore-mentioned growth spurt hits. (On a side note, I threw out 4 pairs of shoes yesterday, every single last one of them sporting quarter-sized HOLES in the toe area. This would be thanks to the inherited trait of ALL of them walking on their toes...)

Anyway, my sister and I share the same love for The Children's Place, a kids clothing store that is often ridiculously over-priced in our opinions, but do manage to bring it down to a realistic level a few times a year. Like $5 Fleece time every winter! Cozy, yummy little pullovers and hats and scarves, and pants that don't fall off even the skinniest little tushies (like Ni'ke's). Everything fits, at least for awhile, and we rest easy in the knowledge that our kids will for a time be warm and quasi-fashionable.

It's too bad this picture isn't from the day that I forgot to lay their clothes out the night before school, which I'm in the habit of doing when I go to work at night to help with the morning madness that occurs between the time they get up and when I get back home... Ma-lak looked relatively normal b/c guys don't have that many colors to choose from and everything goes with jeans, right?? But the girls looked like they were headed for an all-night winter camp out, attempting to keep warm, had 2-3 layers of mis-matched clothes on. We're talking green pants with a yellow t-shirt and purple sweater, pink furry boots and then the colorful hats and scarves. I walked in the door and just cracked up!! Most of the cracking up was due to the bewildered look on Daryle's face when he said, "What?!?!? I thought they looked fine!!" Yeah, I let them go to school exactly the way they were...... Why not?!?!?!