Blog Trip ~~ Day Four!!

I LOVE shopping, just ask my husband's wallet!! I don't get to shop as much as I used to, most days my shopping is limited to groceries. I go to the grocery store almost everyday. Usually it's just for milk and bread (two staples that rapidly disappear in our house), but more often then not I'm buying things for dinner. It used to be that Rich and I would go grocery shopping together. I loved doing that. He would get the sale items, meat and cereal plus his little cravings. And I would get everything else. Nowadays, he goes and gets stuff and I go and get stuff and we hope we can make a meal out of it. Otherwise, I'm at the store shopping for dinner items.

I do love clothes shopping. I really love buying baby clothes. But I almost never buy anything full price. I always wait and shop the clearance and sale racks. This is where having a big family gets expensive, clothes.

I'll tell you my little secret - I don't buy new clothes for school.

My philosophy on that is simple, the weather is still warm and nice so my kids are going to be wearing all their shorts and tees for the first few months. Then if you buy clothes too early, you have the problem of the children going through a growth spurt (and let's face it - most kids grow in the summer, at least mine do) in which case now the clothes won't fit them. So what I do is buy everyone new shoes and a few new tees to mix in with what they already got.

Then when the weather starts to cool, I take them and buy jeans and pants. A month or two after that, I buy some more shirts. They all get new undies, socks and pajamas at Christmas (I know! But name one parent who doesn't do that). And of course there is the ever present hand me downs.

Now when I shop for my family I usually head somewhere like Old Navy or Steve and Barry's . The clothes are reasonably priced and they have a decent selection for everyone. We will also head to Target and occasionally Walmart. Rich and I take all the kids and get what we need together. I can't stand shopping with all the kids by myself and neither can he. And for us, it's just easier if everyone is there, that way we know we got something for all. It would be too easy to forget someone if we all didn't go.

Our town doesn't have any place to shop for clothes or shoes. We have a few cities to chose from for clothes shopping. But, our newest area is the Tanger Outlets. They just built an outlet center about 30-40 minutes from our house. They have 75 brand name and designer outlet stores including American Eagle Outfitters, Banana Republic Factory Store, Brooks Brothers Factory Store, Children's Place, Coach Factory Store, Gap Outlet, Harry and David, Nine West Outlet, Old Navy, Timberland Factory Store and Wilson's Leather Outlet.

We haven't been there yet, as it just opened last weekend, but I'm excited to check it out. I can't remember the last time I was at an outlet center.