Easter Dress Shopping, Rated R.

Saturday night, I took the kids shopping for Easter clothes.

And I pined for the days when Kate sat complacently in her stroller, eating Cheerios and not giving me any lip about the clothes I picked out for her.

But I digress.

I could not – could not – believe some of the dresses I was seeing. In the little girls section. Of Macy’s! It’s not like we were in Forever 8 or anything. (That’s me trying to be clever, like Forever 21. Get it? No? Ok, anyway…)

Even Macy’s must be ashamed of themselves, though, because they don’t have any of the questionable dresses that grace their store on their website. So I’ve spent the better part of the evening trying to find pictures to prove my point.

(I won’t tell you about the google searches I’ve performed during this quest for fear that other weirdos with similar searches will wind up on Mommin’ It Up, but I’m hoping this post will be proof enough that I had a good reason for searching those terms when the authorities come a callin’.)

In any case, I present to you example one. Note that this dress is available in sizes 4-6x, perfect for the preschool crowd.

Isn’t that lovely? Because, you know, every little girl needs some black lace.

And how about this one?

Perfect for Easter Sunday… or Dancing with the Stars.

And this… this one is my personal favorite. Again, available in sizes 4-6x.

Really, these dresses aren’t even as bad as the ones I saw the other night, but they were the best examples I could find without going to jail online.

Call me a prude, but five- and six-year-old girls should not be sexy!

Quite honestly, Kate was eyeing some of the very dresses that made my skin crawl – they were pink and sparkly and sequin-y and appealing to her. I was quick to say HELL NO no, but obviously someone’s buying them or they wouldn’t be hanging on the racks.

It seems a great disservice to our daughters to allow them to be sexualized at such a young age.

Between the images in the window of Fredrick’s of Hollywood that we couldn’t miss as we walked into the Stride Rite next door, the pelvic bones of the boys on the signs for Abercrombie and Fitch, and the dresses in the little freaking girls’ section, I felt like I should have blindfolded my kids just to walk through the mall.

So here’s what Kate will be wearing on Easter, and Christmas. And prom.

Of course, I am making a joke in very poor taste kidding.

Here’s the dress I picked for Kate to wear on Easter.

Isn’t that gorgeous? I just love it.

Unfortunately, Kate did not. (see pining for pre-conversational days above).

We did, however, settle on this one, which is also quite pretty (and much prettier in real life!).

So, um, happy Easter shopping to the rest of you. And don’t forget your blindfolds.

Post to Twitter

Retail Hairapy

***Updated with photo of mah HAIR***

So, Saturday was my day. The sun shone, it was like seventy-freaking-degrees, and I got to go shopping by mah-self. First I hit CVS and Walgreens and got some sweet deals, and then, I went to Target to get THIS beauty (on the advice of my friend Laurin – thank you girl!):

It is the Remington Emi Airwave Dryer, a.k.a the COOLEST FLIPPIN’ HAIR DRYER EVER!! It dries your hair and curls it at the same time. Amazing.

Laurin wrote a great review of this hair dryer, (read the full review here and see a video of her demonstrating it on her local news here) so I’ll quote her:

After reading the directions, I got started on what I figured would be another shameful chapter in my hair saga. See the attachment tube? I separated a section of hair at a time, turned on the dryer, and dropped the ends of the hair sections into the tube. A vortex of air sucks the hair in and spins it round and round, drying it from the roots to the ends into a perfect curl.

When all of the sections of my hair were dry a mere eight minutes later, it looked like I had smooth dreadlocks, a look I hadn’t really considered at this stage of my life. After letting my curls set for a minute or two, I finger-combed each section apart and checked myself out in the mirror. Holy hairnet! My hair looked amazing. The curls were perfect and I looked like I had just come from the salon. Shower to done in about 10 minutes, with an actual hairstyle. Life changing!

Ok, it’s me again. Doooodes, I totally got this hair dryer this weekend at Target, and it RAWKS! It worked perfectly. My hair used to be stick straight, then I had little miss Sophie and somehow it got wavy. Only it’s mostly just really wavy in the back, kinda wavy on the sides, and straight in the front. NOT COOL. It now takes me forever to style and I pretty much always hate the way it looks. But with the Remington Emi, it only took me about 10 minutes and my hair was dry and styled, and very, very wavy. And it stayed wavy all day long. As a matter of fact, I think I might even be able to get a second day out of this hairstyle. Since it usually takes me about 15 minutes just to get my hair DRY (I have tons of hair, people, I’m serious), this is a major, major exciting hair breakthrough for me. Thanks to Laurin for this great discovery!

And now, since the readers demanded it, a photo of my Emi-styled hair (and yes I am getting my brows waxed again next week so SHADDUP):

wavy hair courtesy of the Remington Emi hair dryer

My other super-awesome retail coup this weekend came from Sears. I was moseying through the store when I saw that the Lands’ End shop was having 70% off clearance. 70%!?! Just that morning I had been looking online at Lands’ End Overstocks because I really wanted to get a nice winter coat for next season and thought I’d buy while they were on sale. So imagine my joy when I found this Weatherly jacket (in admiral blue) in the Lands’ End shop for just $11.99 on clearance and this Angel Down full-length coat for only $26.99 on clearance! I am now the proud owner of both, and my grand total with tax was only $41.71. Wooohoo! I am going to be very cute and very warm next fall and winter!

Great weather, great bargains and great hair…put a little pep in my step!

So, what exciting things did YOU do this weekend?

Post to Twitter

Coupons Make Mommy Happy

Well it’s 6:39 PM and I’m just now getting this post up, because I didn’t even have the chance to do any of my coupon shopping until this afternoon! I hit CVS and Walgreens and did not come away disappointed. It’s amazing how much a good couponing run can lift my spirits. When I got home I felt like a a real winner. 🙂 Here’s what I got!

First up, CVS:

63 cents and I made 2 ECBs!

One Touch Mini $14.99
Three Puffs tissues $2.91
CVS Vitamin D $2.99
Fusion Razor $7.99
Total = $28.88

Coupons:
$5/$25 Rite Aid q (my CVS takes competitor q’s)
$14.99 One Touch Mini manu q
$4 Fusion manu q
total= $4.89
I paid with a $4.99 ECB adjusted down to $4.89 and paid 63 cents cash. I got back 2.90 ECB for the Vitamin D and 4 ECB for the razor. Woot!!

Next I went to Walgreens, where I hadn’t been since I would guess, August or September. But the deals were too good to pass up this week!

$1.43 at Wags

Sambucol $12.99
Colgate Max Fresh $3.29
Excedrin $5.99
Two Extra gum clearance 65 cents each (filler!)
Blink eye drops $7.99
Total = $31.56

coupons:
$10 off Sambucol Walgreens q
$4 off Sambucol manu q
75 cents of Colgate manu q
$4 off Excedrin Walgreens q
$1 off Excedrin manu q
$2 off Blink manu q

Total (including tax) = $12.93, and I got back $11.50 in register rewards! $8 for the eyedrops and $3.50 for the toothpaste. Woohoo! I am going to use those register rewards on the sweet Huggies deal at Wags next week!

Well that’s all for me this week! Hope you all did great too! To see how everyone else did, check out CVS Superstars at the Centsible Sawyer, Super Savings Saturday at Money Saving Mom and Shopping Superstars at the Thirfty Mama.

Post to Twitter