I packed the 6 girls into the van on Saturday for a day at the mall. Alice and Emma couldn't recall their last visit to the Lima mall (school shopping for kindergarden 4 years ago) and the other girls, I'm fairly certain have never been there. I'm not embarassed to admit that if we can't get what we need at a Walmart or Target, we probably don't need it. But every great now and again we like to try something new. Easter is the one occasion in the year that everyone gets something new to wear, so we were on a mission! What an enjoyable day. I'm not sure I've ever had all 6 girls alone for a whole day. We started off soon after breakfast, and made it home in time to fix the men some supper. In between we had a ball trying on all kinds of fun outfits, shoes, etc. We even splurged and went out for a sit-down lunch. (A place with no chicken nuggets on the menu.) Oh it was nothing fancy, Alice requested I-Hop, but it was ordering from a menu, which is definitely a treat!
As for shopping, I was disappointed to find that it's impossible to find a dress in the mall with sleeves. Everything was tank-style, or worse yet, halter/strappy. I'm certain it's a conspiracy for stores to be able to sell the matching sweaters they had hanging next to each dress. (Which we did, for a couple of the girls.) They have you over a barrel. But like I said, Easter's the one time that everyone ('cept John and I, of course...we've been wearing the same stuff for ten years, I think) gets something new. We even slipped into the boys section at one store and picked out new shirts/polos for all the boys. Too cute.
I'm glad we don't shop like that all the time. It's actually a bit stressful to keep track of who's getting what, and who still needs pantyhose to match, etc. But it was a completely enjoyable, different kind of day for the girls in this house...and hopefully they'll have some memories of it a few years down the road when we may try it again.
