Shopping with my girl!

Ella and I had the best shopping day together on Saturday!  Our mission was to find her an outfit for the  upcoming and much anticipated Justin Bieber concert.  We had lunch, blasted One Direction and The Biebs in the car, shopped for shoes and jewelry at Forever 21, and ended the day snuggled in bed with Chinese and a girly teen movie.  Oh, how I love this little lady!!

Tantrums and Target

Yesterday the kids and I had to swing into Target for a few things.  Initially I noticed there were a few more kids than normal, but it wasn't until we had gotten into the various aisles and begun shopping that I picked up on something I can only describe as a different quality in the very air around us -

Tired,rude, grouchy moms with their bored, tired, rude, and very whiny children.

Summer break is officially upon us!

Don't get me wrong.  I have been at Target many, many times and witnessed this very same phenomenon.  But it was as if it was the moon had shifted and suddenly I was in some bad horror movie, one where bad parenting and awful children have taken over the world.  It was scary my friends.  All I could think was if I was a person even considering having/adopting/fostering a child ever, my decision would have been easily made for me.

And here is where I can't help but brag - forgive me.  Because amidst this chaos I looked over at these two -

and I was so proud.  Yes they fight, whine and sometimes are even rude.  Yes I get tired and grouchy and even rude sometimes too.  But yesterday in Target we were golden!  For a moment we were the cover of Parenting magazine and I felt it and let me tell you the feeling was sweet.  And I have to admit I even felt a little bit smug.  Just a tiny bit.  I'm sure nobody noticed.

Next time you see me in Target I may very well be contributing to the grouchy rude nightmare, so I needed to share this story just for the record.

I love my kids.



Shopping Therapy!

So, yesterday I had a little out patient procedure to fix my de-funct veins.  Yes one of the lovely side effects I incurred from having my beautiful children was some unsightly and uncomfortable varicose veins!  And that's all I'm going to really say about it because thinking about it too much causes me to go all weak and unable to make a fist. 
Anyway, things went good and I'm actually feeling pretty o.k. but I had to spend yesterday and a chunk of today in bed and after taking a few naps, watching The Bachelor and reading I really had no other choice than to shop!  Well, virtual shop that is.  And virtual shopping is so lovely because you can browse and pick out whatever you want and it ALMOST feels like your actually buying the items.  I just tell myself that - in a few days I'll be getting some lovely packages with some of these:

and if I get those than I really must have these too!

And of course to balance everything out I really should get these....

Of course I'd look kind of silly wearing brand new shoes without some new outfits to go along with them --right?  Exactly!

And just in case Mr. Veen asked me on a date for maybe my birthday or Valentines day it would be fun to dress up a little.  Just a tiny bit...



By the way, my mom will remember that I used to have a dress almost identical to the polka dot number.  And I LOVED that dress!  It makes me happy to see it back in style again. 

And if you've made it to this point in the post thanks for coming along with me on my little shopping spree!  I hope to do a little real shopping sometime very soon and now my wheels are a spinnin!  All of these can be found at Anthropologie, ModCloth and J. Crew and most of it is out of my price range.  Sigh...

FYI:  tomorrow's Friday - whoo-hoo!!