You haven't lived until you've shopped for a formal with three kids!

Well, I'm here to report on last week's shopping trip.



Armed with an entire bag of candy conversation hearts in my purse, we entered David's Bridal. (Yeah, I'm not even going to pretend we were going to attempt some high end boutique. David's is not Wal-Mart. Or Target. Or even the Salvation Army. David's is a step up for me.)

The girl who helped me really was helpful, and eventually I actually made it to the dressing room with lots of options.

Well, sort of.

Remember the post partum thing? The great stuff they give you to - ahem - help actually pushed that tummy out like no other. Plus, that new jersey fabric that is so in is not friendly to really anyone. I tried on a really cute jersey dress in orange (couldn't zip up the back, but that's another story) and tentatively poked my head out of the dressing room. Horrors, walls of mirrors. ( I remember thinking walls of mirrors were so fun seven years ago in a chic boutique in Minneapolis. Hmm, what changed?)

Wow, orange wasn't my color, and jersey wasn't my fabric.

JD: "Mom, don't get that one." Ok.

Cambria found the conversation hearts. RRRIppp. The floor of the dressing room now was littered with You Rock and Got Love? and Sweet Thing and Goodbye.

Eventually my helpful sales rep or whatever you call the female employees of David's Bridal had mercy on me, realizing I couldn't zip (or unzip) any of the dresses and came back to help me.

I ordered the only dress that fit. In black. It's too short because I'm too tall, but here is where the joys of knowing how to sew kick in and I can add a band to the bottom which will be cool and who knows?

Maybe it will have that custom high end boutique look.

And if anyone wondered what the kids were doing - look below - that's Jacob bouncing a hungry Gabe, and Cambria enjoying the magic of the mirrors. (We got the conversation hearts cleaned up if you were looking for them.)