It's the (second) most wonderful time of the year

What, you thought I meant Christmas? I'm talking about clearance time! January/February and July/August are when I do most of my shopping for the kids: when the previous seasons are being cleared out of the stores (to make room for, y'know, swimsuits in January) I buy up all their clothes for the next year and store them in those big Rubbermaid totes, along with all of my Goodwill and garage-sale finds. I get a lot of good stuff for ridiculously low prices and my kids haven't figured out yet that their clothes are always a year out of style. Generally, something has to be at least 50% off to catch my eye (unless it's something that's harder to find, like coats or pajamas). Today I went to Target, Old Navy (all their baby clearance is an extra 50% off!) and Walmart (I know! I hardly ever shop at Walmart. I'm not one of those anti-Walmart people, I just don't like their stores. Although the gear oil lawsuit thing is probably not necessarily their fault. When quality control analysts do their job, everybody wins. But I digress) and brought home a seriously good haul. And since I had nothing else to blog about except complaining about all the snow, I thought I'd share.

I came home with a huge pile of clothes for Porter - adjustable waist cords, buttondown shirts, a hoodie and some other goodies - for like twenty bucks. Given that he hasn't outgrown all of his size 3's yet and they may be good for another year, I think his fall/winter '09 wardrobe is pretty much set.

Betsy is a little more difficult, since she's at the awkward age between toddler and tween. Call me crazy but I don't like the idea of decking out my little six-year-old in Hannah Montana or High School Musical. It's hard to find anything good for her, let alone on clearance. But I picked up some cute velour trackpants ($5) and a huge stack of long-sleeved T shirts ($3 each) at Walmart. Since the shirts are plain, I think I'll dress them up with some of my scrapbook supplies. Goodness knows I have enough foam stamps, ribbons, and buttons laying around that I can spare a few. Who wouldn't love to have a bunch of unique, custom-designed tops?

Okay, these were for me. I couldn't decide between the black and the yellow, so I got them both. In my defense, they were five dollars a pair (which is the exact same price of a pair of shoes at Goodwill). A little different from my usual style but I think they're so cool and vintagey-looking: you'd have to be dead inside not to love the little ruffles on the vamp! My sister Emily is always telling me that I need to get over my fear of ballet flats (Emily loves ballet flats. Emily got married in a pair of ballet flats. Even though her husband is like eight inches taller than her) and that there's nothing wrong with a little toe cleavage. I'm not sure if these technically qualify as ballet flats because they have that darling narrow strap and a kitten heel that you can't see but I'm not a shoe person so I don't know what else you'd call them.

So, just when I thought I'd get away with a minimal amount of damage, I discovered the toy clearance at Wal Mart, which was marked down an extra 50%. I thought I'd take a peek and see if there was anything worth putting in storage for a future gift giving occasion. I ended up having so much that a complete stranger (a really nice lady) went to the front of the store to get a cart for me, because I couldn't put it all in the stroller.

I picked up this neat, insanely detailed jungle playset for Porter's birthday in April (fifteen dollars). Check out the spider web! And the rocks shaped like a gorilla!
A radio-controlled car, also for the P-man's birthday (fifteen bucks). I think it will be a lot of fun in the basement, where there's hard floors and lots of wide open spaces. And being that he's a guy, he does love the remote control.
A ball-rolly thing for Amy's first birthday (twelve-fifty). It plays really annoying music when you roll the ball down the track. Think I'll be taking the batteries out of this one.

Oh, and the much-coveted Barbie MyHouse that Betsy originally wanted for Christmas but didn't get because Santa didn't feel like buying all the little furniture sets separately. (Don't feel to sorry for Betsy - she got a bunch of art stuff instead.) It was packaged together with the living room and dining room sets for a whole seventeen dollars, and I got the last one. Poor Betsy is going to have an awfully hard time waiting for her birthday to get here.
So, blog-readers, what are you shopping for these days? While you're at it you may want to pick up some mouth socks, which is what all the cool kids are wearing these days. Everyone knows only lame-o's put their socks on their feet...