Our Go-To Girls' Clothing Brand For Summertime Adventures - The Find by Zulily (2024)

Our family is getting excited for summertime, and my 4-year-old daughter, Maggie, and I are having the best time planning activities for the season. She’s in a preschool program right now (one she loves), but it won’t be in session over the summer, so she and I (and her baby brother) will be spending lots more time together.

Our list of activities keeps getting longer: picnics, a lemonade stand in our neighborhood, a trip to the zoo, visiting our nearby science center, tons of playing outside, and our favorite – trips to the beach! My in-laws have a condo at the beach, so we get to go often. Lucky us! And then, of course, there are holidays like Memorial Day and the 4th of July to look forward to as well. We can’t wait!

Fellow preschool mamas: I highly recommend making a physical list of summer activities together with your kiddo. Once you’ve made your list, keep it in a well-trafficked area of your home so you see it often. It will help spark inspiration for fun things to do all season long, and your child can check things off the list as you take part in activities – and you can add to the list as new opportunities come to mind. You could also work with your child to put together a little journal to help them document their summer. They likely aren’t writing yet (my daughter isn’t!), but they can make a drawing of a particular activity, and they can dictate thoughts to you that you can jot down on their behalf. It makes for such a sweet keepsake – a little snapshot in time. (I don’t know about you, but age 4 is SO MUCH FUN – maybe my favorite so far.)

So…what to wear for these fun summer outings? I have just the brand to recommend: Millie Loves Lily!

My process for buying clothes for Maggie online: I browse first and select several options to put on our wish list, then invite Maggie review those and help me narrow the list down to make final choices. That way, I know she and I will both be happy with what we order, and she’s always so excited to wear pieces she chose.

Size wise, Maggie wears a 4T in most clothes but I get size 5 for her in Millie Loves Lily. The pieces all fit her well now (I like that there’s a bit more length to her dresses as a result), but they’ll also work great for months to come. We’ll be able to pair some of her dresses with leggings as the weather cools down in the fall, making the pieces really go a long way.

They’re perfect for her to wear to play in and to wear to school – a win-win! (A little tip for dresses with little girls: I love having Maggie wear bike shorts under her dresses these days. She used to wear bloomers – or “bloomies,” as we’d call them – but has aged out of those. Bike shorts are the perfect solution, because she can play hard and just be a kid and we don’t have to worry about any wardrobe malfunctions.)

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