Girls just wanna have fund$...

Last week I had the privilege of taking Gracie on her first shopping trip where she spent her own money! Grandma and Grandpa Nelson sent her $1 for Valentine's Day and another for Easter, so they've been burning a hole in her little blue jean purse ever since. They just opened a new party store in town, so we thought we'd go take a look there to see what we could see. (I didn't get any pictures during the shopping trip, unfortunately.)

The first thing we saw when we got there was the huge Dora the Explorer cardboard cutout in the front window, and that was enough for Gracie to be hooked! She was also very excited when we went down the birthday aisle and saw all the different themes available (like My Little Pony, Dora, Curious George, Cars, and of course, the Disney Princesses). The most exciting thing by far, though, was the candy section! They had big bags of candy as well as bins from which you could choose individual candies for about $.20 a piece. We decided that that is where her money would be best spent, so I told her to choose 4 pieces and then we headed for the checkout. We unzipped her purse and I told her to give the lady a dollar, which she did, and the lady was quite impressed. Then the lady tried to give Gracie her change back, but Grace reached right under the lady's hand and grabbed the bag of candy--no way was she gonna miss out on that! :)

We got home, and the first thing she did is run in to show Daddy her stash. (He was very impressed, of course.)

She got Junior Mints, a dark chocolate Hershey's, a sour rope, and a red sucker.

Next, of course, she got to eat one of her pieces of candy. She chose the red sucker (which she held all the way home, by the way), and she must've worked on that for a good half hour.

After that she was pretty worn out, so we saved the rest of the candy to eat throughout the next week.

I'd say her first shopping adventure was a success, wouldn't you?