The Young and the Restless

Mother of 6 1/2

1 week
6 kids
10 loads of laundry
9 episodes of puke (hence the 10 loads of laundry)
8 loads of dishes
$175 worth of groceries (and I still ran out and had to go back to the store twice)
22 meals
14 snacks

=6 happy kids and 1 exhausted mother

This past week we watched Jason's nieces and nephews while their parents went on a cruise. The kids were so excited to spend time with their cousins but I was a little nervous to go from a family of 4 to a family of 8 overnight. It actually went better than I had expected (for the most part), their kids were well behaved and they all played really well together. The oldest, Amanda, is almost 11 and she was such a great help. The youngest, Samantha, is 2 and was so cute. She called me "mommy" the whole time and once when we were at the park another little boy ran up to me and she immediately clung to my leg and told him, "no, my mom!" It was hilarious. We even ventured out and took the whole brood to the theater for the summer movie pass. We definately got some odd looks, though, especially since their kids are half Chinese as well so it looked like they really were all our kids. The hardest part of taking so many kids out was that I was a nervous wreck counting heads every few minutes. Things were going better than expected, until Tuesday night. I was out with friends when I got "the phone call" that the youngest one had thrown up. By the time I got home Jason had her bathed and everything cleaned up so I thought I was off the hook. After she threw up 5 more times throughout the night and 3 more times in the next couple of days, I realized that I had definately not gotten off the hook. Jason was supposed to be in Vegas this week and I thought I was going to die, but thankfully he got rescheduled and was even able to work from home a couple of days to help out. It was a fun week, but I definately gained a greater appreciation for mothers of large families! I'm also REALLY looking forward to next summer when they're going to be watching our kids while it's our turn to go on a cruise (I used visions of the Carribean beaches to get me through all the vomit).

yeah baby, 99 cent Sonic milkshakes--who said you can't feed a big family on a small budget?

checking out the 2 foot Goldfish on steriods and cooling off in the splash pad
how we spent the majority of our dayshanging out at the Martinez's house for a Memorial Day picnic--you would never guess these two were cousins, huh?