Weekend Recap

Friday isn't really the weekend, but my recap begins there nonetheless. 

My cousin informed me of her neighborhood's annual garage sale, so as early as we could manage Friday morning I headed to Ft. Wayne with the kids, some cash, and big dreams. 

I met my friend Amy there and together we canvassed the neighborhood (or at least as much of it as we could with 4 children in tow who insisted on playing with every broken toy in every driveway).  We really hit the jackpot at one sale and I came away with practically an entire wardrobe for Ada and some tennis shoes for Cambel (which he is convinced make him run faster)

(tell me these 50 cent New Balance bad boys don't look brand new) 

and a remote control car for $1 (which needed about 4 million expensive batteries) that Ada has enjoyed watching from the window (unclothed of course).
 

The day would have been perfect had my van not completely stopped running in the middle of the road on the way to get some lunch. 

That was unfortunate and a bit inconvenient considering I had Ada and Cambel and all my loot from the garage sales and the car seats and a stroller and we were at an intersection with a steady traffic flow.  

But, lucky for us, Amy's house was not far away, we have roadside assistance which will reimburse us for the tow truck, and all that was wrong with it was a dirty sensor and something about airflow. The mechanic gave me a pretty lengthy explanation but those are the only words I could understand. 

Cambel went directly from garage-saleing/van disaster/afternoon at Amy's to his cousin's birthday party which ended in a camp-out with the dads.  He came home sugared up, tired, and smelling of smoke and dirt, but he had a blast. 

And tonight I took the kids out to try to get some new pictures now that Ada is a year. Since I am too cheap to take them to a photographer (besides the fact that getting them dressed and arriving at studio on time and in a fairly decent mood is an entirely stressful undertaking that I would prefer to forever avoid), I attempt to do it myself. Sometimes this works and other times, like tonight, Ada cries, Cambel wants to play, Kevin is tired, and I am just the loving and gentle mom yelling out things like "sit still! smile! give her a kiss! no, don't do that! Cambel, aaggh, Ada stay here!, don't eat the mulch!, could you please just..." all in much more aggressive tones than a real photographer would. But then a real photographer is getting paid. Me? This is the thanks I get.