Garage Sale Shopping with 2 kids

I have to let you all know how much I love going to garage sales. I am convinced that my husband thinks I am nuts and he wonders what I am coming home with most of the time. Then there are the times I am standing in someones driveway calling Bruce on my cell phone to see if he thinks a certain item I am looking at is a good deal or not, or if he thinks we need it at all. Poor Bruce! He puts up with me very well (most of the time anyways!).
So almost every Saturday morning in the spring and summer I get up and go to garage sales and Bruce stays home to spend time with the kids. I love the free time from the kids and I get to shop! What more can a mother of two kids dream of?
Most of the time I am looking for clothing for our kids. Yes, I dress my children in second hand clothes and they look GREAT and they are happy too!
There is the odd time I find some toys that are in good condition, I found my current purse at a garage sale last summer for .25 cents. Just a few weeks ago I drove up our street to a garage sale and they were selling beautiful furniture. (It was a couple that just moved in together and they had double of everything), so I found a queen size box spring and mattress brand new for $80.00. (plus the guy we bought the bed from delivered it to our door, that is better then Costco, you have to pick it up yourself, and we got this all for $80.00 bucks) Bruce and I were in desperate need of a new bed and didn't have the money for a brand new one this summer, our bed was second hand from his cousin (thank you Brenda and Simon)but it was starting to sag in the middle. NO....I kid you not... literally Bruce would roll into me in the night. I was praying for a new and cheap bed for about 2 weeks and the Lord was faithful and he provided our needs of a new bed.

So my story about the kids garage sale shopping.............

This past Friday morning my friend from church called me to let me know there was a huge garage sale near me with tons of kids stuff, clothing, toys etc. So I fed the kids lunch and then packed them into the mini van and headed off to the garage sale. Please note that my kids normally nap directly after lunch, but being the brave mother that I am thought they could handle an extra 1/2 or so without their naps right away.
We got to the home where the garage sale was and the kids were in heaven with all the toys on the front lawn. Luke went directly for all the trucks and boys toys and Allison ran to Elmo (she loves Elmo right now) and a baby stroller. I was looking through some of the toys (there was a ton) and I saw Luke out of the corner of my eye sit on a Little Tykes plastic picnic table that was for sale to play with some toys. I thought to myself this is good Luke and Allison are being good so I can go through some stuff here. Well...............Luke was sitting playing at the picnic table and all of a sudden he yells at the top of his lungs......MOMMY I PEED MY PANTS! To my dismay I looked under neath of him and there was pee dripping everywhere and onto the grass. There was one bad thing though, directly under him was a huge container of CD's and computer game discs that were now covered in bright yellow pee from my son. I saw this and my heart sank and to tell you the truth my first thoughts were.....I don't want to buy approx 50 CD's because my son peed all over them! Then my second thought was.......do I packed the kids up and run to the car and take off and just not tell them what Luke did or do I tell the women holding the garage sale that my 3 year old just peed on all their CD's that they had for sale.
I did the noble thing and told them what had happened and they were fine with it and we all sat down and started cleaning off the CD cases with Lysol wipes and paper towels. So while we were cleaning the CD's off Luke was screaming at me that he was all wet and he wouldn't stop crying because he hates being in wet clothes. So I pulled off his pants and underwear and he ran around in only his shirt for a few minutes. Then the ladies started going through some of their kids clothes they had for sale and found a pair of Pooh Bear underwear for Luke to wear and a pair of shorts. Now Luke was all dry and he was ready to play with the toys again on the front lawn. The Cd's were all clean now so I continue to look around at the kids clothing they had for sale. I kid you not approx 4-5 minutes later Luke says "Mommy I have to go pee again!" (I know I should have left the first time and gone home, but I am a sucker for punishment). So I asked one of the women there if Luke could use their toilet to go potty. So one of the women stayed outside watching Allison while I took Luke into this women's home to use the potty. Luke went pee and then out we went again to the garage sale, to look at some other stuff they had. (I am telling you this garage sale was HUGE!)
I finally picked out what I was going to buy and then proceeded to tell the women that I needed to go the bank to get some more money to pay them. So I called the kids to the car, Well......the screaming from both of them was deaf defying. I am sure everyone in that neighbourhood (plus some) heard them both letting me know how they felt at the very moment. Luke and Allison wanted to stay there to play with all the toys. So the entire time I drove to the bank Luke and Allison were screaming. Finally I got back to the garage sale to pay the women and as soon as I pulled up to the house both kids stopped screaming because they thought I was going to let them out for them to play again. (Please remember I should have put my kids to bed after lunch, not go to a garage sale.) However I did not let them out of the car and they proceeded to scream again.
I was never so happy to get home after this garage sale shopping experience and put the kids to bed. Both of them fell to sleep right away as they were now approx 1.5 hours behind the normal time they go to bed for their naps.
I will always let my kids nap first and then go out to play/shop with them. It makes their lives easier as well as mine.