And the magic number is 11!

This weekend the house was filled with children, games, dances, and fun!

In addition to our own 5 children, we had the 4 Princen kids, and Annalou's (Lorie's) 2 kids. They all arrived Friday and will be heading to their own abodes sometime tonite. All the kids had a great time. Saturday Bam and I split up the carpooling responsibilities. He headed to Salt Lake for Devyn and Kale's soccer games. Since I had to coach Kealani's team, I hung out at home with the little ones. Lucky for me, Joy decided against being gone this weekend and helped out during the day with her 2 grandkids(Annalou's children).

In addition to having the kids, it was homecoming week. Kenrik, my eldest went on a day date saturday with 5 other couples. He volunteered to be in charge of the food for the hike/picnic. So before the soccer games, I helped him pack up all the sandwhich fixins and supplies. That was probably the most hectic part of the day.

One of the happiest moments we had was when we took Jenica(Annalou's daughter) to my friend Brenda's to get her hair fixed. Jenica, under her parents watch not mine, decided to cut her own hair. She chopped off her ponytail, leaving what looked like a mullet gone bad. Brenda did an awesome job cutting, blending, and styling her hair. She looks like a cute little girl again. Thanks Brenda!

The most challenging part of the weekend was making sure Caleb Jarel, Annalou's youngest boy didn't eat anything he was allergic to. For those of you who don't know, he is allergic to dairy, eggs, wheat, soy, and seafood. That limits him to potatoes, rice, meat, fruits and veggies. As hard as we tried, he still could be found picking crumbs up from the ground that others dropped. We vacuumed at least 3 times a day to avoid this outcome.

The most heart pumping part of the weekend was when I was sitting in church and realized I was missing one of the children. Brittney, 9 yrs old, had been left home. I thought she had walked to church with the boys. Once at church I didn't really pay attention to who was there and who wasn't. I was more concerned with keeping the boys quiet. As soon as I made the discovery, I headed home. When I got back to the house, she was a little scared but said she just kept looking out the window waiting and wondering if we would remember her. She had been downstairs watching Esther when we left and didn't know we were gone until her show ended.

The most triumphant part of the weekend was night time. The first night, Caleb woke up once with an ear piercing scream(according to his Mom this is normal). I moved him to my bedroom floor and went to find his binky. Bam told him to shush and surprisingly he obeyed. I gave him his binky and some allergy medicine and he went right to sleep. The second night, to my astonishment and his mother's, he slept all night!!!! I'd say we had a pretty easy time compared to his parents.

As for injuries, the only minor incident was when CJ the 7 year old flew over his scooter while riding on the pavement. Luckily, he only received a few scrapes and bruises and didn't need medical attention.

When they all head home, it is going to be rather quiet around here. Glad they could all come but definitely glad they aren't all mine. Hats off to my Aunt's and my cousin's who have had more children then me.