Octo-Moms

(warning--long post)

For the past 8 days, we have had 8 children under 8 in our home.

Crazy.

But soooo fun!

Our friends the Rude family came to visit us last Saturday night. Our kids were so excited that they waited on the corner of our street, so that they would see the mini-van coming the second that it entered our neighborhood. When the Rudes finally pulled up, our children were disappointed that the patriarch of the family, "Uncle Ted", was not coming until later in the week. (He was forced to remain in their home state of Arizonia fighting scorpions until Wednesday.)

So that meant on Sunday it was kids against parents (in church) but even though our odds were down, 3 to 8, parents still won with a combination of never-ending-snack-bag and rotating-toy-magic. Sunday afternoon we took 8 children, 4 water bottles, 3 adults, 3 strollers, 1 scooter and 1 bike on a walk to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera...
So you'll just have to imagine us in the foreground, looking slightly polygamous.

Monday we took the kids to the splash pool at the end of the street. Being out of the habit, we also forgot the camera that day.

Tuesday we had a bike and stroller parade on our street, then had popsicles.We also went a cool "spider web" park near the lake. Again, I forgot the camera, but I didn't forget any of the children, so cut me some slack!

On Wednesday, Very-Well-Bethy (the mother of the Rude clan) and I took the brood to the Children's Museum at the Gateway. Everybody had lots of fun. (Just for clarification, the Rude children are all very close in age to our own children. But their parents were smarter. Rather than going to the trouble of giving them hard-to-remember names, they simply gave them numbers. These are in Spanish of course, because the Rudes are from Arizonia, where Spanish is the official language.)
Anna drove the police car. Her Rude compliment, Quatro playing in the ball pit.Tres Rude went shopping while her Smith counterpart, Elliot, prepared for dinner.Dos Rude stayed at the water table with the pirate boat for the entire hour we were there.
Jill gave the younger kids a ride.Molly worked the construction area with her friend Uno. Uno also tried out the rock wall.
Then, in order to make the Rudes feel more at home, we went and had a picnic in a park full of homeless people.

Even though we are their best friends in the whole wide world, the Rudes didn't come to Utah only to visit us. They also had a wedding Thursday morning. Each night after putting the octuplets to bed, Very-Well-Bethy and I would make truffles. These were to be party favors for the wedding guests.
V-W-Bethy's job was Production of Truffles, and my job was Quality Control. I tasted each and every truffle to make sure it was good enough to serve. Sometimes it was tough. Especially on the 200th truffle, but we pushed through the pain in order to reach Truffle-Makers Nirvana. (The state in which you are at one with the truffle).
Wednesday night, after the arrival of Uncle Ted, all four adults packaged the truffles in lovey-dovey boxes.
We decided that we now had the expertise to form a company to make and sell truffles. We could call it Truffabulous or Truffantastic. Then we looked over and saw this:
It was then that we knew that too many truffles can actually cause irreversible brain damage, so we vowed to never speak of them again.

On Friday we found the older girls doing makeup in order to make a movie.
Anna apparently found her way into the makeup too.

Saturday, Very-Well-Bethy and I hit the yard sale circuit leaving the men in charge of all 8 children. For 3 hours. We were a little afraid to come home--wondering what we would find. But we shouldn't have been. The Husbands exceeded our wildest (truffle induced) fantasies. They took the children to a small beach on Oquirrh Lake (sorry no photos), then brought them home, bathed them, fed them, and cleaned the kitchen.
We instantly had to engage in wanton carnality to show the menfolk our appreciation (sorry no photos).

Saturday night we went on a double date. Yes, as crazy as it sounds we left all the children in the hands of two intrepid 14 year olds. We were headed to the Roof for dinner, but on the way tried to pick up two other ladies off the side of the road (Dave had a taste of polygamy for those few days before Uncle Ted arrived, and he liked it!)
Actually we were really trying to be helpful to what appeared to be two stranded ladies with their little boys walking along the side of 90th South in 100 degree heat. We gave them a ride to the grocery store, but apparently we freaked them out, because they called someone else to give them a ride home.
We finally arrived at the Roof (fashionably late). We actually came for the view, but it turned out that the food was pretty good too.
And the desserts were amazing.
We think we may have gained a little weight at dinner, but it was worth it.
We are glad that we were able to have such a fun week with the Rudes.
Thanks for coming to visit guys!!!

Post Script
The Rudes left early Sunday morning. But apparently not before they had time to prank us by hiding Magic Shell and little notes all over our house. So far we have found 12 bottles. We are planning to put all this Magic Shell into our year's supply of food storage.

P.P.S. Here are a couple videos the kids made: