Homecoming dress shopping!

When Hannah was younger I used to have visions of shopping together for her dresses for Homecoming and Prom. Similar to the scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts walks down Rodeo Drive in a beautiful suit, big hat and multiple boutique bags in hand. Sales ladies are at your beck and call to bring you 20 dresses that would look good on you along with a snack if you so desire.

But then reality sets in...we live in Dayton! We will have to settle for the mall. I take Joey with me as well since Matt wants to take the other 2 to go do something for the day. Since we had great luck at Macy's last year...we head there first. As we approach the dress department I see that almost every other high school girl in Dayton has decided that this would be a great day to get their dress too! Holy crowded!! We stand at the outside and Hannah immediately says it's too crowded. She hates crowds! But I know if I don't find a dress today then the selection just gets so picked over. So I tell her I'm going in! I basically used the stroller as my machete through the sea of dresses and crazy moms and daughters. Poor Joe! I pile 20 dresses on top of the stroller. Hannah really wants a strapless dress this year but I'm really going to try to find one that's not! ;) After a quick game of Marco-Polo ( remember we are short people so we can't even begin to see each other over the racks and swarms of people) we head to the dressing room.

Since we got there early...most the girls are still out looking at dresses. So there's still a few rooms open. I hand Hannah her stack of dresses and she promptly hands back 15 of them...apparently I have terrible taste! She heads back with 5-.....only 1 of which is strapless! And of course she tries on that one first. =P She comes out and says she loves it. I really love it too....but Matt is going to crap when he sees this because let's just say the "girls" have really grown over the summer! I tell her to try on the others and she hates them all...except for the strapless one...of course!

By this time the dressing room is packed! And here I am standing with the stroller right in the middle of it. She won't let me in the dressing room with her...even after I promised to just stare at the wall while she changed. She wants me to go look for more dresses but I'm afraid Joey might lose an eye if I try and push him through the hurricane of hangers again. Hannah says to just put him in the dressing room with her. At this point I realize we have an audience. A group of moms are down at the end trying to figure out if he's my baby or hers! lol

I head back out into the eye of the storm this time to be met with even MORE people! This couldn't be further from my Rodeo Drive vision! Not only is there not a sales lady to be found ( okay truth be told they're probably buried under the 500 dresses stacked up at the cash register!) but no one is even offering me a snack! Pure crap I tell ya! I run out and grab another dozen or so dresses and make it back in 1 piece...minus a big chunk of my hair that got caught on a hanger that some little brat ripped out of my hand! I show all the dresses to Hannah and she let's me know that I'm obviously stuck in the 90's because these dresses are horrid. She agrees to try on 2 but I can see her mind is already made up...she wants that strapless one! Naturally...the other dresses fit funny/are scratchy/straps are weird...you name it. Anything to get out of having to get anything but that strapless dress!

So I admit defeat! The strapless dress it is! This is just too hazardous to our health. I now need a wig and Joey is covered in glitter! And the snotty ladies down at the end are now positive that Joey belongs to Hannah.

I head to the register with my 20% off coupon in hand.....you know me...always have a coupon. ;) Sales lady rings it up and tells me I can't use the coupon since it's a regular price item. What? I've never heard of that. Oh well....at this point all I want to do is get the hell out of there so I'll pay regular price!

So Hannah now has a beautiful homecoming dress....that is strapless! Anyone have a turtleneck she can borrow?

The spiders have returned!...and I beat my kids.

There are pros and cons to having a corn field in your backyard. Pros....I could practically lay out naked and no one would ever know! ;) Cons....CORN SPIDERS!

Yes...the corn spiders have made their annual return! And these suckers are HUGE!!! Great big brown fuzzy things that attack my house from Sept til November or so. There supposed to be harmless...but you'll see further in my post that Drew begs to differ! For the most part they usually stay in the basement and only ocassionally will we see them in other parts of the house. FYI....when we haul out our Christmas stuff I always stand back a bit because I just know those little effers are back there! ;)

This year though they seem to be alot more daring. I saw one just casually climbing up the main stairs, found one in the laundry room and one in the hallway. I know theres lots more but I'm pretending that there not there unless I actually see them okay?!

So even though I know these things are in the house..they still scare the bejeebus out of me when I find one. Yesterday Drew comes walking into the kitchen as I'm packing up Brooke's lunch and I say good morning to him. Imagine the horror on my face when I see one right.on.the.front.of.his.shirt! OH MY HELL! So me...being the fab mother that I am....I'm going to kill that sucker! I grab the closest object ( Brooke's lunchbox)and start whacking at it! Wham on Drew's chest, wham on his arm, wham on his back..this thing just keeps moving! Drew starts crying at this point and I said just stand there I'll get it honey. He says stop hitting me I don't care about the spider. OMG...in my moment of insanity I realize that I'm beating Drew to a pulp with a lunch box.. which is fully loaded might I add =P Oops! The spider then drops to the floor and we quickly put it to it's death with a flip flop!

The kids are now laughing at what a raging lunatic I became trying to kill this thing. And Brooke points out that it's a good thing that it was just a soft sided lunchbox within my reach and not a frying pan.


Go ahead... check exterminator off my list of thing to be when I grow up as well.