When I was a young child, growing up on the harsh streets of Brookline, Massachusetts, my mother dressed me and my sister, Lindsey in hideously brightly colored outfits that contained as much puffy paint, sequins and bows as humanly possible. Here is some photographic evidence that I looked like a total jackass when I was little.
This elegant little number that my sister, approximately age seven, is modeling sports extremely three-dimensional bows attached to large white buttons on a tasteful neon turquoise background. This gives the enviable appearance that she is being attacked by very tacky
butterflies
 My sister again, around age twelve appears to be wearing every color
ever conceptualized along with many, many patterns
Lindsey and I, on vacation in Atlanta are wearing hott matching outfits purchased at the Limited Too. What you cannot see it that the leggings are actually stirrup pants. Jealous? Yeah.
Note that each of the clocks on the shirt display different times.
This enigmatic detail has caused an endless argument between me and my
sister, her view being that "schools get out at different times"
whereas I feel that it is displaying different times of the day, the
last one being 3pm, when school apparently, gets out.
The magic of airbrushing has come alive with this white top and matching leggings.
The Freedman girls, in complementing pink outfits and matching hair bows. Note that my light orange socks completely clash with my dark orange leggings. And my shoes are button print, which doesn't really make any sense, except to me, who personally wore them. Lindsey's top has lots and lots of fabric pieces hanging off of it, which is very
classy.
Me, age five as a non-waterproof bunny and my then best friend as a terrifying unicorn. Amazing! We have learned that even bunnies need to wear raincoats.
Me and my sister again, ages ten and five. I am wearing a pink
sweatshirt with hott appliquéd bunnies, and Lindsey has cars outlined
in puffy paint on her sweatshirt, which makes sense, as most ten year
old girls are really into cars.
Lindsey, age ten with my dad at my fifth birthday, is the model of elegance and restraint in this electric-blue creation featuring every possible neon color as an oddly shaped piece of fabric or hotloop. Grace Kelly, is that you????
 This moment in time still haunts me to this day. We were at the Barnum & Bailey Circus Museum, and my father made me pose next to this life-size photo of Tom Thumb, the famous midget. I was SO MORTIFIED here and sometimes it just pops into my head and I get all embarrassed all over again. However, what really should have embarrassed me is this hot pink puffy paint disaster I am wearing. Note the coordinating puffy paint marks on the shorts, and the lime green socks. Yesssss.
The shorts with the exact same pattern as the shirt? Oh, that is JUST TOO MUCH! The shorts with a slightly sparser pattern? Fashion genius! Note my frilly socks as well. hott.
There are no animals in this photo of us at the San Diego Zoo because we scared them all away with our fugly-ass outfits. Lindsey is changing it up by wearing neon green spandex instead of leggings, and it appears that the hearts on my sweatshirt are somehow also smeared all over the bottom. Nice
This is me, at age three, with my shirt very stylishly gathered at the side. All of the creepy prints are actually glittery. Oh, 1989,those were good times.
This lovely scene in front of the San Francisco Harbor is marred by the presence of puffy paint ballerinas on my shirt. Yes, their hair bows are real ribbons.

this is straight from my dad:


PS to Caroline--
 
This is the amazing thing about the clothes you and Lindsey wore when you were little kids.  Lindsey tended to wear what her mother bought for her.  You wore them because you liked them.  Bright colors for little girls.  Black for NYC sophisticates.  Hope this doesn't bum you out.