A Style All Her Own

So I pretty much let Addison and Hannah pick out their own clothes.  Most of the time anyway.  I do give occasional advice, "Usually people don't wear tights as pants." And sometimes I force them to change clothes, "No, you may not wear flip flops.  There's four inches of snow out there!"  (Sometimes I think being a Californian may be hereditary).    And every so often...mostly when I actually have some sort of formal picture plans for the day...I will choose an outfit for them.  But really, about 95% of the time, I just let them wear whatever the heck they choose to put on.

I have several reasons for this.  First of all, when I was a kid, I always hated when people made me wear something.  Whether I liked the outfit or not, I hated being told what to wear.  So I try to interfere as little as possible.

Also, I'm lazy.  Usually I just tell the girls to go down stairs and get dressed, and pray that they don't find the flip flops I hid when it began snowing.  I am busy enough getting the twins ready in the morning, the more the older girls can do for themselves the better.

And finally, I really enjoy seeing what outfits my kids come up with.  Some times I find it humorous, sometimes impressive, and sometimes mind boggling.

Lately I have especially enjoyed seeing the outfits Hannah has come up with.  Bart calls her Punky Brewster.  He loves the crazy quirky ensembles she comes up with. Her latest trend is wearing swimsuits over top of her clothes.  It happened several times before spring break, and then again this morning.  But today, at bedtime, when she came up with last year's swim suit over top of her warm winter pajamas, I decided it was time to take a picture.

As Bart pointed out (between hysterical fits of laughter), "At least nobody's going to think we're the ones who dress her."