Girls Weekend

Robert had a family get together this weekend in St. George leaving me with the 5 girls for Friday and Saturday by ourselves. Emily was in desperate need of new clothes, and I asked Robert if on Saturday night he would let me take Em to go get some clothes after he got home. She also needed some shoes, since both her sneakers and her dress shoes for school had holes in them. I thought I would take ALL the girls to get new shoes, since Lindsey and Lauren need some flip flop shoes too.

Robert had left for St. George about noon on Friday, so when school got out, I went and picked up the girls, and we went to their last day of the book fair at their school where they each were able to get 2 books. They had a Buy One Get One Free deal. We spent enough money to even get a free mini-poster too. The girls were so excited.

Then I decided to just go shopping with all the girls... what was I thinking? For the most part it was good, but the girls were giggling, laughing, singing, dancing, posing, and hogging the mirrors in the dressing room. We all went into the same dressing room. I had the big stroller for both little girls, so I got the handicap dressing room. I kept having to "Shhhushh" the girls but they had such a good time. They were loving to try on clothes in the dressing room. Amber kept unbuckling the stroller so I would occasionally see her run through the clothes racks, I would grab her and put her back in, buckle her in, and not much time later she would unbuckle and be chasing one of the twins around. I guess we need to practice going to the mall more often. Of course in the middle of our trying on clothes, the girls say, "We have to go potty" and of course the bathroom is on the next level up... so we have to leave everything go up, come back down and continue on with our fitting process.

We went to Sears since I had a $44 balance left on a gift card for Sears and a 15% off coupon, but then later when we went to Walmart to buy some plain t-shirts to go under some dresses they got, I was feeling a little buyer remorse for the higher prices at Sears compared to Walmart. I am hoping these will last longer and hold up better than Walmart clothes. That is what I keep telling myself so I don't feel so bad about it. I do typically think you get what you pay for, although there are exceptions to the rule. Emily is kind of at a point where she isn't growing much, and who am I kidding, I am only buying clothes that will go through 4 more girls, so it's worth it right? :)

Although I do have to admit I will often grab a t-shirt at Walmart while I am there doing other shopping and then as soon as I wash the shirt it shrinks in the length and then it is too short for me to wear comfortably without a longer shirt under it. That helped me justify the Sears trip and not feeling too bad about the money spent there.

Friday night for dinner, we went to KFC since we had coupons for FREE Grilled Chicken meals but found out there was some problem with the coupons or someone over used them or something and now they are no good. So my FREE dinner that I thought we were gonna have turned out to be more like $27 instead. Another bummer I felt. (KFC has a form you can fill out and send in your coupons and they will mail you new ones that are also good for a free soda along with the 2 piece chicken and 2 sides. It will be awhile I am sure before we get those back.)

Then I took the girls up Israel Canyon where Robert likes to run. He told me I should go walking up there, which I did and it is steep at times and I regretting it the whole way up there mostly thinking how unstable the ground was with all the ruts and the uneven rocks sticking out. When I was walking up there I saw a rabbit's hind leg along with it's tail, remenants of some other animals meal. The girls love things like that. I took them up to see it, and not to mention the view is incredible. As we were driving up we also saw off to the side a skeleton of some sort of animal, like a large dog or small deer. The girls really loved that too. That was pretty much the end of our Friday.

Saturday I kept thinking about taking the girls to the zoo, they had a "Macy's Mom and Me at the Zoo" where you go to Macy's buy their shirts for $7 and get into the zoo for free. This is their 3rd annual zoo day, so they would work for next year too. They had extra special things for the kids to do that were free if you were wearing one of the shirts. I kept thinking it would be fun and then thought it would be crowded.

I finally decided against it and we just hung out in the DIRT in our yard digging for the most part of the morning while Samantha slept. We had our First "Sale" of the girls'. Emily made up a new kind of ice cream. She took vanilla ice cream, put in some mandarin oranges, crushed up some ice cream cones and mixed it all up. They sold those out on our side walk. They sold 5 of them. Silly girls. They LOVE sales. I wish I would have gotten a picture of their first sale. Emily had the cooler out there and all the things in the cooler. She is so funny about things like that. She wants everything to be just perfect and in order, and of course HER way. (which caused a bit of fighting) She called her new ice cream, Orange Delight. I did have some of it and it wasn't too bad. I ate it with much resistance since they will often make me "drinks" with questionable ingredients that don't work so good together. This was kind of yummy, but I am all about texture so the crunchy cones in the ice cream was a delightful crunch in my ice cream. For only a quarter she will make you a cup of it too. (Oh, wait though, the ice cream got too soft and flopped out of the ice cream carton and onto the floor when it was getting put back into the freezer.) We may have to buy more ice cream.

After Samantha woke up from her nap, we went to get shoes and shirts to go under some of the dresses the girls got that didn't have sleeves. We did good in the shirt department but the shoes, didn't work out so well. Emily did get some that will end the year for her, but we had no great luck. Lindsey and Lauren did get some flip flop type shoes but not what I wanted them to get. They will work for them okay, just wasn't what I was thinking as "easy" slip on summer shoes.

The girls wanted to eat out again, but I told them I just spent a lot of money and couldn't spend anymore on eating out right not. We got home and had some dinner, which was only one that would be appreciated by kids. We had clam chowder soup with mini tacos and applesauce. Yummy huh! Rob and his parents got back shortly after our dinner was ready. To no suprise they ended up getting something else to eat and picked up some pizza. That was the end to the Girls' weekend.

I really don't mind Robert gone like that, I would if it was OFTEN but I don't mind the less pressure of dinner and those kind of things. The girls and I get along well. Amber even slept the whole night in my bed, which I wouldn't recommend or probably do again. I had to shoo the cat down several times as he would jump up on the bed and lay down purring next to Amber's face. I was afraid he would wake up Amber in the middle of the night.

I don't think we will have another Girl's weekend for awhile, but that is okay. It was nice while we had it. Robert's mom kept saying how sorry she was that we stayed home while Robert went with his family, but I much more enjoyed staying here with the girls then stuck in a small motel room with lack of good sleeping arrangements. I had no problems with it at all. She kept telling me how bad she felt for me.... I kept thinking, it isn't a big deal. I missed Robert but me and the girls have fun! I wouldn't want to do it for LONG periods but it is okay. It was better than the 5 days Robert was gone when I was 36 weeks pregnant with Samantha and having the other 4 girls to take care of. I ended up having Samantha the next morning after Rob got home. Now that was timing!!

Until next Girls' weekend... or probably more likely a Girls' night when Robert goes to some sporting event.