Big Weekend (Kind of like one of Stephanie's Big Days, but even bigger)

What an eventful weekend! Phew! It was enjoyable to take a trip to Salt Lake, but man was it exhausting. We celebrated Nat's birthday, played mom and dad to 10 kids, and...ok, so I guess it doesn't sound like much at all, but it really was!

Just the fact that we didn't miss Natalie's birthday by being on a trip made her birthday tons better. ;) (We love you Nat!) We got to celebrate by having a girls' day at Gardner Village where we went to lunch at the bakery, shopped around (in the pouring rain) and then went to the movie No Reservations. It was pretty cute. I would recommend it. (Oh, and P.S. Ben worked hard for his grandpa during Girls' Day. But don't worry, I'm not completely a mean wife because I tended 10 of his younger siblings for 7 hours the next day by myself while he went golfing with my dad--as Mom always says "it all evened out in the end.")

After Girls' Day we went over to the Christensen household to relieve Mary Ditto of her parenting duties. Then we had dinner, tried to put the little kids to bed (notice the operative word: tried) and then played a form of Mormon Mad Gab with the older kids until we were dead tired. I think our crowning accomplishment though was getting all 10 kids to their cousins' baptism EARLY. Hooray! They were all so well-behaved through it too. I was very impressed, as were all the relatives.

After the baptism, most kids fell asleep and then we did shifts of playing computer and Nintendo with cleaning their rooms and doing their jobs. (Note: Ben is such a good husband. He was hesitant to leave me alone even though I reassured him that I handle 30 kids at a time by myself at school all day. But he was even thinking of canceling golf so that he could help me! Isn't that sweet? I told him he could go though, and when he came back he made me just sit and relax while he got the house cleaned up and put the kids back to bed.) It is extremely tiring to keep tabs on every child! Later that night, Brooke and the Alli-Cat came to visit all the way from Virginia. Alli is so big now--she's starting to walk! She is a very cute little niece. I feel bad for Tim being all alone in Virginia for 10 days without his girls! When we left Sunday morning to drive back to Logan, we were glad to turn the house and kids over to Brooke. Good luck! :)