Invasion of the Little People!

I don't think anything can fully prepare you for going from 4 children to (almost) 4 sets of twins overnight. Julie, the kids, and Mom all came down for a one week visit (they got in late on the night of the 29th, and left the following Tuesday morning). Mom and I billed it as "helping Julie out", after all she did have a conference to present at in Flagstaff. And since Flag is only 2 hours away, she might as well come and see me while she's at it. Besides, if she hadn't brought the kids (and Mom to help watch them), she would have been away from them for two additional days, and had the additional monitary outflow for child care. So, really, we were doing Julie a favor. At least that's what we kept telling ourselves, and our husbands.

Back to the twins. Julie's kids and mine are all pretty close in age. Ilana and Aidan are 5 months apart; Forrester and Davin may be 18 months apart, but Davin's got at least 2 inches on him, so they look the same age; Ronan is 2 months older than Eme; and Aspen and Maddie are a year apart (but Ronan and Aspen are only a few inches apart, so they look like twins). Somehow we survived them, by "we" I mean Mom, Julie, Eric and I. Seriously, 8 kids really take it out of you, am I ever glad that 4 is my number.

We took everyone to the Phoenix zoo, and we visited one of our neighborhood parks. We pretty much kicked the kids outside after breakfast each day (the weather was fantastic as our spring weather ever is). They had fun playing out back, the teeter-totter was everyone's favorite, with the sidewalk chalk a close second. Mom took a crazy video of Julie and I on the teeter-totter, but as we're in our pajamas, it may never be seen.

We took almost daily trips to the store. Seriously, I had no idea just how much food 8 kids could consume! Imagine pirhanas at feeding time. It took us half a week to figure out the best way to deal with dinner. And I still laugh at the thought of feeding them eggos for breakfast, we've only got a two slice toaster..."please sir, may I have some more?"

But it was fun, and I am so glad we got to do it. I've been spoiled these past few years. I've gotten to see Julie (and her family) every summer. It was always an added bonus of our trips to Huntsville, time with my sister. But this summer will be our last time to see each other like this, since Julie is going to go back east for her PhD program. So I am so very grateful to our husbands for supporting us in this get together. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next summer without a sister fix...But for now, enjoy the slideshow of our adventures.