shopping weekend

My weekend was a nightmare of shopping. It suddenly occurred to me that our vacation is quickly approaching and that the kids both needed new shoes and lightweight jackets. I took Logan to Wal-Mart with me first thing in the morning hoping to get all of his purchases out of the way. Nope. They had NOTHING his little heart desired. We instead got groceries and returned home. After lunch we all went out to Shoe Carnival. Kaylin tried on Sketchers and Reeboks and Nikes and LA Gear. She tried different sizes and widths, but NOTHING felt good on her wide little feet. Logan tried on a couple pairs of heavily advertised Z-straps and fell in love. He SAYS they feel great, but I have a feeling that his feet could be bloody stumps of blisters and he'd still be running around, thrilled to have the awesome tv shoes. Whatever. At least he has a couple weeks to break them in.

Both kids also needed new Crocs. The official brand has TERRIBLE sizing for kids. I bought both kids new Disney Crocs for Christmas and they were too small. (Fortunately, they were on major clearance and Kaylin's will soon fit Logan and Logan's will soon fit the little boy next door, so not a huge waste of $$. At least MINE fit fine :) Anyway, Payless has fake Crocs that come in a larger range of sizes so we stopped there. Wooohoooooo, their Crocs were on sale for $5 a pair! Kaylin got two pairs and Logan one. A successful stop!

On to Old Navy for jackets. Another success! Well, a partial success since Kaylin's jacket is light yellow. All of her clothes SHOULD be a swirly mix of dark colors to hide stains. Everything was on clearance at Old Navy and even Gene found himself a new jacket!

We were waiting in line behind our neighbor who is a teacher in our school district. I've been dreading sending the notes to the kids' teachers about our long vacation so I asked her what she thought the reaction would be. She glared at me like I just ran over her puppy and said "Well, there's nothing they can DO about it, but they won't be happy. It won't be too big a deal for Logan's teacher since kindergarten only grades with S's and U's, but it will be a major pain for Kaylin's teacher." She went on about how Mrs. J will have to really go out of her way to make sure Kaylin makes up all of her grades and how we should probably bring her a present. A really nice present. Uh, ok. She then realized she was practically going off on me in the Old Navy line and laughed and apologized for being so harsh. I was laughing because that was what I WANTED to know. Now I can tailor my notes accordingly... Yikes!

I finally decided that Kaylin can just wear Crocs at Disney World- she will anyway, so the only thing left to buy was a 2009 White Sox calendar for Gene. The "calendar store" at the mall also sold toys and games and everything in the entire store was 50% off. Logan has been hoarding money since at least his birthday. He was up to $63 and absolutely refused to spend a penny of it. He plays with the money, counts it and even smells it on a daily basis. Last night he actually parted with a little of it! The store had a squishy, liquid-filled ball surrounded by a permanent net. When you squeeze the ball, little round "pustules" pop out through the net. Logan plunked down TWO BUCKS for that ball and had no buyer's remorse!

I am sooooo done with shopping! The only other thing I want to buy that I can't just pick up at Wal-Mart is a lap desk for the kids for the car. I have seen countless lap desks over the years, but now that I need one, they apparently no longer exist. Any ideas? Anyone?